One quarter of immigrants own homes in San Jose
In LendingTree study, city has second-highest rate of any major city in the nation
Nearly a quarter of immigrants in San Jose’s expensive real estate market are homeowners, the second highest rate of any major city in the country.
LendingTree, an online loan marketplace, ranked home ownership rates among immigrants for the 50 largest U.S. cities. Four other California cities cracked the top 10: Los Angeles in third, San Francisco in fourth, Riverside in fifth and San Diego in 10th.
Of the 50 cities studied, San Jose also had the second-highest share of foreign-born residents, nearly 39 percent, which includes naturalized citizens, permanent residents, visa holders and undocumented migrants. A third of the city’s native born residents are homeowners.
Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist
at LendingTree, said cities with high rates of home ownership among immigrants also had some of the most expensive housing markets.
“Immigrants are attracted to the more dynamic cities, where there’s greater job opportunities,” he said. “And that tends to also go along with areas with higher home prices.”
One exception was Miami, which topped the list with a foreign-born home ownership rate of 26 percent. Median home value in Miami is just $278,700, far less than the nearly $1 million median price of San Jose.
Kapfidze noted that Silicon Valley’s technology industry, where workers have seen some of the only regional wage gains in the past 20 years, has attracted immigrants from all over the world.
“Very high skilled, very well educated people from all around the world tend to gravitate to that part of the country because of that industry,” Kapfidze said.
In San Francisco, the other Bay Area city on the list, almost 18 percent of immigrants own their homes. That’s about half the rate of ownership among native-born residents.
Among all 50 cities studied, immigrants had significantly lower ownership rates than their native-born neighbors. Although San Jose’s large foreign-born population is catching up, the city as a whole had the sixth lowest total home ownership rate in the report. Only about 57 percent of San Jose residents own the home they live in. In contrast, Minneapolis had the highest ownership rate: about 70 percent of residents there own their homes.