Latino Immigrant Homeownership in New Destinations

Luis A. Sanchez, California State University, Channel Islands

Immigrant assimilation in new destinations has become a topic of interest in the literature, yet little attention has been given to housing tenure. This paper uses recent data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to examine homeownership among three large immigrant groups from Latin America: Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans. Specifically, two questions are addressed: 1) Do homeownership rates differ among these national-origin groups in new and established destinations? 2) What are the sources of differences? The bivariate results indicate Mexicans in new destinations have lower homeowner rates than their counter parts in established areas but find no significant differences across place type for Guatemalans and Salvadorans. The multivariate analyses, however, reveal no significant differences for Mexicans’ homeownership in new versus established settlement areas after controlling for individual characteristics while Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants, on the other hand, exhibit higher homeownership rates in non-traditional areas than those in established destinations.