Survey: Home Ownership Is Smart Buy

WASHINGTON (AP) April 20, 2004 - Americans believe owning a home is the best investment they can make, although blacks and Hispanics still face obstacles to homeownership, according to a survey by mortgage giant Fannie Mae .

With interest rates at record low levels and a volatile stock market, 70 percent of those responding said they consider buying a home to be a safe and smart investment. Only 38 percent said an IRA or 401(k) retirement plan was a ``safe investment with a lot of potential.''

Fannie Mae's latest annual housing survey, released Wednesday, showed a hefty 78 percent of respondents saying that now is a good or very good time to buy a home.

Despite the recent recession, many Americans have seen their net worth increase because of a rise in their home's value. The survey indicated that minorities and baby boomers are contributing strongly to home buying demand.

Yet the survey also suggested that many people, particularly minorities, ``are not aware how easy and affordable it has become to buy a home,'' said Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ``Too many obstacles, such as knowledge about the process and saving for a down payment, continue to slow minorities on the path to homeownership.''

Despite the increase in homeownership in recent years by blacks and Hispanics, many minorities seeking to become first-time buyers are stymied, Fannie Mae said. Blacks see more obstacles to buying a home than does the general population, according to the survey. Among black respondents, 32 percent said their credit rating would be a major obstacle to getting a mortgage, compared with 23 percent of all adults.

Job security, a growing worry for many Americans, is particularly so for blacks, of whom 27 percent said the confidence they have in their job security would be a major obstacle to buying a home.

Only 33 percent of Hispanics responding said they feel very comfortable or fairly comfortable with the terms involved in buying a home, such as loan points and insurance. That compares with 42 percent of blacks and 49 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

The large number of Hispanics who do not speak English well are especially likely to be shut out of the housing market, Fannie Mae noted.

The survey polled 1,864 adults nationwide, including 505 blacks and 510 Hispanics, who were interviewed between July 1-10. The margins of error are plus or minus 3.1 percentage points overall and 4.5 percentage points for the black and Hispanic respondents.

Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored yet widely traded public company, is a major player in the multibillion-dollar home mortgage market. Congress created Fannie Mae to buy home loans from banks and other lenders to supply ready cash to the home mortgage market. The company, based in Washington, buys mortgages from lenders and packages them into securities for sale on Wall Street.