An American Action Forum study suggests the prospect of 2.1 million additional homeowners by 2020 should be a plausible reason for legislators to work harder on a comprehensive “benchmark immigration reform.”
The finding is based on new Census Bureau population projections that reaffirm known facts about the direct connection between immigration, population growth and housing demand.
Immigrants tend to be younger and have higher birth rates, “and profess a strong aspiration for homeownership,” which contribute to new
Immigration reform resulting in net population growth and an increase in employment-based immigration “would likely have wide-reaching economic benefits,” that include a boost to the housing sector since many of the states and metro areas that have consistently attracted the largest foreign-born populations were also some of the hardest hit by the housing crisis, says Winkler.
While it takes roughly 30 years for immigrant homeownership rates to catch up with overall rates, a Fannie Mae survey concluded that “second generation immigrants have higher ownerships rates than non-immigrants,” he added.
