St. Louis Realtors wants to increase Black homeownership in the region. The association suggests that financial institutions and Realtors expand homeownership opportunities by offering more programs for first-time buyers and expanding access to credit and down payment assistance programs.
The Realtors association released a 74-page Reimagining St. Louis Increasing Black Homeownership plan on Tuesday, highlighting the history of redlining and racial discrimination in the area and offering recommendations to Realtors and banks to help expand Black homeownership and reduce systemic barriers to homeownership for Black residents. The plan includes homebuying data from nearly 75,000 Black homeowners between 2017 and 2022.
The homeownership plan is part of the group's 2022 commitment to reducing systemic racism in the homebuying process.
The idea is to find ways to drive homeownership rates up across the board, especially the African American homeownership rate, because there are barriers that prevent many Black families from owning a home, said Amanda Claire, St. Louis Realtors' director of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“We want to look at the options of education, learning about what the beneficiary needs are, the insurance piece … and that generational wealth,” she said. “The idea is to educate to move the community forward, as well as stabilize the economy of the St Louis region.”
According to the plan’s data, a non-Black single homebuyer has a median income nearly 10% higher than that of a Black couple in St. Louis and St. Louis County. The plan states that homes purchased in the city and county by non-Black couples spend 20% fewer days on the market than those purchased by Black couples.
The report also shows that over the nearly 75,000 home purchases, there was persistent racial discrimination in income and loan denial disparities, debt burden differences, affordability challenges and credit barriers.
Claire said the plan’s data on credit scores and debt-to-income ratios of Black couples and white couples in the area was jarring to view because the gap was so wide.
“As an individual who is raising babies, you think about ‘What do I need to put in place for my children, for my children's children, for the future generations that are coming up behind us and what kind of education needs to be geared towards them so that they don't create this cycle?’” she said.
Financial institutions and people in the real estate industry must first acknowledge the issues around housing discrimination before they can progress toward providing equitable pathways to homeownership for Black St. Louisans, Claire said.
The data also showed ZIP codes predominantly in north St. Louis and north St. Louis County that have been affected by segregation and economic exclusion. ZIP codes such as 63034, 63106, 63111 and 63137 are burdened with some of the highest student and auto loans, unsecured debt and retail debt.
Some areas in Florissant are also reflected in the data with high debt burdens. Much of the financial hardships seen in Florissant started decades ago, said Delicia Lacy, president of Realtist of Metropolitan St. Louis, a Black Realtors association.
“Florissant was predominantly white 30 years ago; we started giving incentives to people of color to move from the city to north county … we're all clustered in one little spot still,” she said. “We still have the same problems in these certain areas. The lack of education is just going to follow us wherever they put us in.”
To remedy these issues in some parts of north county, the plan suggests that Realtors should prioritize debt relief programs, credit counseling and homebuyer assistance to mitigate barriers to homeownership.
However, Lacy said Black St. Louisans should take the homebuying experience into their own hands.
“The first step is hopefully you have a checking and savings account,” she said. “Next, go get educated on the steps, what you should be doing, how you find your Realtor, how you get preapproved and then buy that house, and then go pull somebody else up and tell them that it isn’t that hard, because representation matters.”
The Reimagining St. Louis Increasing Black Homeownership plan offers recommendations to increase Black homeownership in the area, which includes boosting the housing stock through collaborative development with community organizations, developers, municipalities and financial institutions. It also suggests enhancing credit counseling and financial literacy programs in areas with high levels of unsecured debt. Home repairs and property improvement plans, addressing student loan debt and promoting fair housing practices are also initiatives that the association believes could help close the homeownership gap for Black St. Louisans and increase the number of Black homeowners.
“If we're looking at the St Louis region as an entity, there are lots of individuals that are a part of that,” Claire said. “It's going to take our policymakers, it's going to take our community leaders, it's going to take all of the neighborhoods coming together to realize that we are in a position to make our region better.”
