Wealth Gap Widens

Wow!! It's actually very sad when you think about it.

I figured this was the case. AA's are in a precarious position when the economy tanks.

I've been thinking about this data since I've read it... One thing that strikes me is that a lot of people, AA and Latinos especially, consider their home as an investment. I've always considered my home, as simply my home... and sometimes it can be used as a financial tool (like the time I tapped into the equity for bill consolidation). My home only became an investment when I moved and turned it into a rental. I have a friend who planned a huge part of his retirement on his home. Had a 15 yr. mortgage that he was fast tracking. The thought being he would sell and downsize when the kids went off to college and retire on the equity. I remember thinking, "wow... I never thought of that..." At the time he had nearly 500k in equity. Fast forward today with the housing crisis, he would be lucky if he has 200k. I've been hearing talks of how home ownership should stop being pushed as part of the "American Dream". As long as there is a mortgage interest deduction, home ownership shouldn't be discounted. But as we see from this current economy, we certainly have to stop looking at it as an investment.

I've never looked at our home as an investment because I don't consider our home as investment worthy. We didn't move into a community where the homes would improve in value to where we could retire off it. We looked into one of those neighborhoods but it would have been a tremendous sacrifice for the short term... we could have stayed in that house for a couple of years and turned around and paid cash for our current home. I still think about that house because we will never be able to afford to move there now. I wouldn't have wanted to leave that home...so it was good that we didn't go for it. Lately I've had thoughts about moving up because there are so many homes on the market that would be a good investment and the economy will bounce back at some point. DH keeps sending me info from builders of new construction when we probably should be looking at foreclosures. My 401K took a major hit when the economy tanked but I redirected the investments as needed & I'm back on track again. I'll be able to retire... not so sure about DH.

I see mainstream caught on to the news. This recession is not helping at all. Depends on how a Black Latino SES is; it's more of an: a house is their largest purchase..thus an investment. Blacks who have a fairly consistent middle class background= 2 to 3 generation of college educated and so on. tend to know a bit more about what is an investment. In general across the racial spectrum quite a few folks are finding their overvalued houses were not great vessels to sink a ton of cash in, or take a ton of cash out. This recession is a huge wake-up call. Dh and I are good in that we purchased our property at a certain time, and was conservative as usual.