SALT LAKE CITY — Yolanda Frazier is a veteran teacher, mom and a self-proclaimed outdoorswoman.
She moved around the country and eventually made her way back to Utah when rent was more affordable.
“When I lived here prior, I was working for Davis school district and I lived in Salt Lake," says Frazier. "I lived in Summerwood and I paid $550 a month for a two bedroom, two bath.”
According to Frazier, those prices were from more than a decade ago, and recently have been going up.
“I am now paying $2,480 a month. I spend every dime, I try to be really frugal. I try to make out the monthly food that I’m going to eat," she said. "I really have to budget my money because it actually takes one of my two weeks' checks to pay rent.”
Years ago, she owned a home in Layton when the school district she worked for at the time notified teachers their insurance premiums were going up. She was forced to sell her home.
“I just wanted to be able to take care of my family and have the American dream and own a home,” says Frazier.
According to research by the National Association of Realtors, while housing affordability hit historic lows last year, minority groups are at a disadvantage when it comes to buying a home.
In 2019 the net worth of a white family in the U.S. was just over $188,000.
The net worth of a Black family: around $24,000.
“They have substantially lower income than what they need to have to purchase a home,” says Nadia Evangelou, a research director with the National Association of Realtors.
Evangelou says while Black homeownership rates increased in the last decade, they only increased by 0.4 percent while White homeownership rates increased by 3 percent. Hispanic homeownership rose by 4 percent and Asian homeownership rose by 5 percent.
The snapshot for Black homeownership in Utah is bleak compared to other states.
“What we see for Black homeownership rates is low compared to the national homeowner level," says Evangelou. "We have 44 percent at the national homeowner level, but however what we see in Utah is almost 30 percent. Unfortunately, we see that Black Americans are less likely to own a home in Utah compared to most of the areas across the country.”
For renters like Frazier who want to buy a home, this map from the NAR shows how many Black renters in Utah can afford to purchase a home.
That’s only five percent of Black renters in Utah, making the state one of the top five states with the lowest number of Black renter households that can buy a house.
Data shows that could be because Black renters are more cost-burdened.
Although they have a 30 percent lower income compared to white renters, their monthly rent isn’t significantly lower than that of white renters.
The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act says Black and Hispanic home buyers face extra challenges when trying to obtain a mortgage.
Black Americans have the highest denial rates for purchase and refinance loans, as high as 20% of mortgages being denied compared to 15 percent of Hispanic, 11 percent of White and 10 percent of Asian applicants.
“When we see Blacks here in the state of Utah, they can’t afford to buy a home, although they would want to because look at the taxes that that they’re paying when they’re really helping somebody else because they’re paying rent,” says Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP Salt Lake Branch.
Williams says from her perspective, Black renters do not always know what questions to ask when looking to make their first home purchase.
“They haven’t done enough research to even know the right questions," says Williams. "They need to make sure that they know the right questions, don’t just go out there asking questions without giving some thought to it.”
Until renters like Yolanda can make that jump, finding affordable housing, for the time being, is the goal.
“I think this is the first year I thought, should I take my talents and do something else? Do I want to leave the classroom? It’s not worth it at nighttime, not sleeping off (sic) I have to pay the power bill or do I have to pay the gas bill.”
A First Time Homebuyer Assistance Program passed in the Utah legislature this year, aiming to allocate $50 million to help eligible applicants receive a $20,000 loan to pay for a home’s closing costs, payments to buy down interest rates or to apply for a down payment on a home.
This would apply to newly constructed houses, townhomes, or condos that do not exceed $450,000.
Funds will be available through the Utah Housing Corporation on July 1, 2023.
