CrossCountry Mortgage is investing in the future of Hispanic homeownership through a new Spanish mortgage application and a focused Hispanic website.
Leaders at the company announced their intentions on Tuesday.
CCM is one of America’s largest retail mortgage lenders and has been included nine times on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private businesses.
The company is also a partner of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a trade association that works towards economic mobility for Hispanics, including homeownership.
“Our support for the Hispanic community extends well past translated materials. This is personal,” says CCM Chief Brand Officer Laura Soave.
“We have hundreds of Spanish-speaking loan officers with deep roots in the community. We’re partnering with organizations focused on advancing sustainable Hispanic homeownership and are embedding ourselves within this community.”
By focusing on Hispanic homeownership, CCM is priming itself for business from the fastest-growing homeownership group in the U.S.
The Latino homeownership rate rose from 47.5% in 2019 to 48.4% in 2021, the highest level since the mid-2000s.
“They’re coming in at the fastest rate of any group we’re seeing,” Tatiana Busch, a real estate broker for Re/Max Gateway in Chantilly, VA, told the Washington Post.
“We’ve seen increases in Latino buyers for the past couple of years, but it accelerated during the pandemic and even in a tight market it hasn’t really slowed down.”
An Urban Institute estimate projects that 70% of net new homeownership in 2040 will be Latino, while Black and White homeownership rates decline in the same period.
But difficulties still remain for Hispanic households looking to buy a home today. Many are first-time buyers, who have been disproportionately impacted by the housing affordability crisis.
In addition, Pew reported that a combination of outdated underwriting models and a shortage of mortgages for less than $150,000 push Hispanic borrowers into “risky arrangements.” These include land contracts, lease-purchase agreements, seller-financed mortgages, and personal property loans for manufactured homes.
CCM is one of several companies looking to expand mortgage opportunities for Hispanic buyers. Bank of America recently announced a pilot program that waives down payment, closing cost, minimum credit score, and mortgage insurance for first-time homebuyers in certain Black and Latino neighborhoods. The program is available only in Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Miami for the time being.
“Even a 3% down payment on a home is a level of wealth or just spare cash that many families don’t have. And that will be disproportionately true for Black and Latino borrowers,” Jesse Van Tol, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, told NPR.
It is an effort by Bank of America to close the racial homeownership gap, with begins with disparities in mortgage lending. Black and Hispanic applicants were more likely to have their mortgage applications rejected than their white or Asian counterparts in 2020.
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