Study: Immigrants help housing markets

Immigrants, 40 million of them, have added $3.7 trillion to United States housing wealth and helped “stabilize less desirable communities where home prices are declining, or would otherwise have declined.” This is according to Americas Society/Council of the Americas and Partnership for a New American Economy.

In case you doubt the sources, have you noticed that the big home-improvement stores feature bilingual signs? Many retailers have joined them.

Previous studies have shown that immigrants, who are typically working age, will help fill the labor gap of retiring boomers. The immigrants are also good consumers. Spend some time in Walmart (I try not to), and you’ll hear multiple languages being spoken. Why? Because to them it’s the retail Promised Land with goods that are far cheaper than they could buy in their home countries.

Their collective demand for housing and their purchasing power “bolster the value of homes,” says the study and “they shift demand for housing within metro areas toward neighborhoods that had fallen out of favor.” As those neighborhoods stabilize, they become more attractive to U.S.-born workers. In other words, the wrong side of the tracks becomes just another place to live without pricing other people out of the market. My wave of urban pioneers, on the other hand, could have resulted in gentrification that would have made the ‘hood less affordable.