Asian Community Seen as 'Tremendous Opportunity'

While there is "some validity" to the notion that the country's Asian population resides in California, is wealthy, and mainly Chinese, Asian-Americans represent a "tremendous opportunity" for mortgage makers all across America, according to panelists at the National Association of Mortgage Brokers' annual convention in Minneapolis.Sandy Wood of Bank of America said Asians have an "ingrained aversion to debt," so they tend to make at least a 20% downpayment and pay off their mortgages as quickly as possible. But John Wong of the Asian Real Estate Association of America warned against labeling Asians as one uniform market, saying that "many different generational qualities" are at play. Whereas new immigrants shop for the lowest rate "because that's all they know," he explained, "they may be willing to pay a higher rate or mortgage insurance in order to own a home" if they knew they could. Craig Nickerson of Freddie Mac argued that Asians tend to have a view of ownership that is "fundamentally different" from that of most other nationalities. While many other ethnic groups use homeownership to build wealth and perhaps start a business, he said, new but unpublished Freddie Mac research has found that people of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean descent tend to start a business first so they can accumulate enough money to buy a house.