Detroit Future City Promotes National Homeownership Month

June 1, 2022

DETROIT – June is National Homeownership Month, and the Detroit Future City (DFC) portfolio of research and programs are focused on informing Detroit residents and other decision-making stakeholders with data, research and recommendations on how Detroiters (majority of whom are renters) can access home ownership and how homeownership is a pathway to an economically equitable and stable city.

In March 2022, DFC released their “Buying In: Opportunities for Increasing Homeownership in Detroit” report that presents DFC’s belief that homeownership is a building block of economic equity and growth, neighborhood stability, and wealth building for people of color.

Additionally, DFC is the lead convener of The Detroit Neighborhood Housing Compact, a cross-sector stakeholder group focused on strengthening the single-family housing market in Detroit neighborhoods, through collaborative action and strategies that build healthier housing markets in Detroit’s neighborhoods.

DFC’s goal is to inform Detroiters about the mortgage process, barriers to homeownership and the challenges, opportunities, and solutions to improve the city’s home purchase market. The report also analyzes three focus areas – the lending process, homebuyer pipeline, and neighborhood and housing quality.

Here are some statistics mentioned:

• Home purchase lending has improved since 2012 but remains low relative to other cities.
• Loans to African Americans in Detroit have gradually increased, but plateaued for white applicants in 2017.
• In 2020, African American applicants were denied home purchase loans at twice the rate as white applicants.
• Leading causes of denial include collateral, credit history, and debt-to-income ratio.

Solutions mentioned include:

• Develop alternative measures of creditworthiness.
• Support for borrowers throughout the mortgage lending process.
• Increase income for Detroit residents.
• Build the value of Detroit’s housing stock.
• Provide more move-in ready housing through rehab and resale programs to create demand and comps.
• Market the city to African American homebuyers.

DFC understands that addressing homeownership rates is a crucial step in Detroit’s ongoing work toward achieving economic equity, that is also why DFC is also the leading convener of the compact aiding organizations focused on the single-family housing market in Detroit.

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