Nonprofit agencies increasingly got involved, offering home-buying seminars, counseling and down payment assistance programs. Meanwhile, the so-called government sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, progressively loosened their restrictions on which loans they would buy. That allowed lenders who sold their mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ease down payment, debt ratio and other underwriting standards. That was coupled with a fairly aggressive policy on the part of HUD and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to come up with some innovative financing approaches that would let some lower-income households into the market. More consumers moved into a position to buy over the course of the decade, too.
Older people are more likely to be homeowners than younger people.
In addition, the financial success of past buyers encouraged many Americans to take the plunge themselves. And just as we saw significant increases in homeownership in the 1970s, we've seen the same thing happen now because of the rapid increases convincing people this was a good vehicle for accumulating wealth. And the beat goes on The boom times haven't shown much sign of letting up, and officials say they want to push the homeownership rate even higher, perhaps above 70 percent. Cuomo said lenders can help do so by focusing on traditionally underserved borrowers, including immigrants, urban residents and Native Americans. Only 48.2 percent of minorities owned a home in this year's third quarter, for instance.