15% of respondents to a 2017 housing market sentiment survey said they either sold their home or did not buy one last year because of concerns about how restrictive immigration policies or proposals would affect them, according to Redfin.
From November 1 to December 6, 2017, Redfin commissioned a survey of 4,270 U.S. residents in 14 metropolitan areas who bought or sold a home in the past year, attempted to do so or planned to do so soon.
Asked how restrictive immigration policies or proposals affected their decision to buy or sell a home, 9% of respondents said they sold their home in the last year because they were worried they wouldn’t be able to stay or work in the U.S. much longer. Six% did not purchase a home for the same reason.
“I’ve seen buyers finally get offers accepted, only to cancel the contracts,” said Gabriella Stwart, a Redfin agent in Bellevue, Washington. “We’re having conversations with professionals working at large companies who are eager to sell or not buying because their visas are expiring or close to it and might not be extended.”
The survey results reveal that housing markets in certain parts of the country are more likely to be affected by immigration policy. Among respondents in the Los Angeles area, 32.7% said they sold or did not buy a home because they were worried they wouldn’t be able to work or stay in the country much longer. In Baltimore, 18.5% said the same, as well as 16.8% in San Francisco.
Other findings in this first in a series of three reports on this survey include:
· 18% of millennials who bought a home in the last year now live in the political minority in their new community.
· 37% of people of color felt they may have been discriminated against when trying to buy a home, down from 43% in a similar survey in May.
“The two data points we have about the perception of discrimination in housing reveal just a snapshot of what amounts to a short moment in our country’s long history of racial inequality in housing, and change in the actual incidence of such discrimination is likely to happen only slowly over many years,” said Nela Richardson, Redfin chief economist. “It’s more likely that that the trend we see in this snapshot reveals an aberration last year around the contentious Presidential election, when racial tensions and anxiety about discrimination were heightened. However, when it comes to where people can live, work and go to school, the idea that more than a third of people of color buying a home still don’t believe that their money is as good as anyone else’s is a massive problem.”
To read the full report, complete with data, charts and a full methodology, please visit: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2018/02/immigration-policies-caused-15percent-to-sell-or-not-buy.html.
