Immigrants’ Home Buying Dreams Lift Housing Market

Patricia Ortiz and her husband Sebastian of Billerica, Mass., cut back on dining out, nights out at the movies, and even opted for a civil wedding ceremony instead of a big affair so they could afford a mortgage to buy a $389,000 three-bedroom colonial.

In doing so, the Panama natives helped lift the slumping Massachusetts housing market and that of the entire nation.

With rising purchasing power, the nation’s growing number of foreign-born residents are keeping the bottom from falling out.

And amid slow demand from an aging and slow-growing native population, immigrants are fueling predictions of a rebound.

Assuming Congress doesn’t impose further restrictions, immigrants - legal and illegal - and their native-born children are forecast to provide the bulk of coming years’ growth in home mortgage demand, nudging the market back up and aiding the broader economy.

U.S. household growth from 2005-2015 is projected to reach 14.6 million - about 2 million greater than in 1995-2005 - primarily because of greater numbers of immigrants.

Most native-born children of immigrants are classified as minorities, and minorities’ share of new U.S. households - a key driver of housing demand - is expected to rise from a little more than two-thirds now to more than three-quarters by 2020, according to a Harvard study.

“As we come out of the this housing recession, immigrants will continue to have an ever-larger role,” said Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California professor who studies immigrants’ upward mobility.

“If you were to stop immigration, it would be devastating, because it would eventually pull this huge chunk out of the housing market’s foundation.”

For immigrants who’ve left behind their families and cultures for a chance at a better life, home buying is another risk worth taking.

Patricia Ortiz and her husband took out an adjustable-rate Massachusetts mortgage to buy last year in the Boston suburb of Billerica.

They figured the risk of seeing their current $3,000 monthly home loan payments rise is offset by the value of having a place they and their newborn daughter can call home.

Follow the link to continue reading this Boston Herald article about the dreams of immigrants in today’s housing market …