Hispanics key to housing industry supply and demand

To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, the Urban Institute’s Metro Trends blog takes a look at the demographic on both the housing industry’s supply and demand sides.

Metro Trends reports that Hispanics occupy a disproportionately higher share of construction and building maintenance jobs, compared to only 15.3 percent share in the current overall working population. For example, Hispanics made up 55 percent of drywall workers last year. In some high-growth states such as Texas and California, the residential construction workforce is almost universally Hispanic. When it comes to demand, the number of Hispanic-headed households’ shares of the total homeowner population and of first-time homebuyers continue to rise.

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