NAHREP: Hispanic buyers prop up homeownership — but policy headwinds are growing

At the same time, he said, lenders must rethink how they evaluate Hispanic borrowers.

That means expanding the credit box to include income from multiple household members — a common arrangement in Latino families — and considering alternative credit data such as rent payment histories.

“There [are] some pockets in the country where it’s a buyer’s market,” Acevedo said. “So, if that is the fact, then we know that sellers are giving more and more concessions to buyers, up to $15,000 to $20,000 in concessions. So, if the seller is going to take care of that part, something like, ‘We got you in the down payment,’ well, what can the lenders do on their end to give credit back to the first-time buyer?

“Now, we can also have lenders saying, ‘Okay, we can do a buy down on your interest rate based on you being a first-time home buyer.’”

Hispanic households added a net gain of 441,000 owner-households in 2025 — the largest single-year increase since the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting the data in 1975.

Without Hispanic buyers, the total number of U.S. homeowners would have declined by 125,000 households last year.

Jaimie Smeraski, NAHREP’s vice president of national programs and research, said the numbers reflect trends the organization has tracked for years that are now accelerating.

“We know that Latinos are young. We know that they’re just now aging into prime homebuying years,” she said. “We’ve seen that Latinos are disproportionately driving homeownership growth for as long as I’ve been doing this report — for the last 10 years.”

Hispanics formed more than 1 million new households in 2025, accounting for 92.6% of all U.S. household formations — a primary indicator of future homeownership activity.

“If we had adequate supply, I think these numbers would be a lot higher for sure,” Smeraski said.

Reaching a diverse demographic

For agents looking to tap into the Hispanic market, Acevedo said there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

The community itself is split between two distinct demographics, he said.

“With the older generation of Hispanics, you’ll find them in local community events,” Acevedo said. “You find them at churches and other areas. Our sole mission is to empower our professionals, where, in turn, they can now educate our community as we go on. That’s number one. Number two is our tech savvy Latinos. You’ll find them on social media and what have you. A lot of our agents now are gaining a lot of business through Instagram reels.

“We have an agent where I asked, ‘How are you getting all this business?’ He just got licensed three years ago, literally three years ago, and he’s already back-to-back made over a million in commissions every year. It’s because he’s gone viral on social media with video tours. He puts these songs that remind (people) of their upbringing.”

Culturally competent education, as the report puts it, goes beyond language access. It involves showing prospective buyers the fruits of their labor.

“[It’s about] giving them that hope, that if their colleague or someone like them can make it and get a home and achieve the American dream, they can too,” Acevedo said.

Immigration fears disrupt the market

Perhaps the most destabilizing force in the 2025 housing market, the report found, was intensified immigration enforcement.

Acevedo said he has seen the impact firsthand in his own agency.

“Some of my escrows have canceled because of the fear of obviously buying a home and then being deported right thereafter — because they don’t want to be stuck across the border with a house, with this mortgage,” he said.

Others, he said, are selling their homes out of fear that the property could be taken from them, cashing out their equity rather than rolling it into another home.

“That fear is obviously driving away a lot of these people who were on their way to building wealth — but it got stopped right there,” Acevedo said.

NAHREP’s Smeraski said agents are fielding increasingly complex questions from clients, many of whom are seeking guidance on how to protect their assets.

“Existing homeowners are reaching out and saying, ‘How do I protect this asset? What happens if I or someone in my family were to be deported?’” she said. “Agents are doing a lot of heavy lifting educating surrounding estate planning — how do you get a power of attorney? There’s a lot of misinformation out there.”

Some agents, Smeraski said, are bringing in real estate attorneys to help clients navigate uncertainty.

The long-term solution lies in fixing what she called a broken immigration system.

“If we’re going to build back trust, that means we need to create pathways to citizenship,” Smeraski said. “We need to create an opportunity for people who have lived in this country for a very long time — that have been economically contributing to this country, putting down roots here. We need to provide a path to citizenship or a path to permanent residency.”

Navigating compensation and credit access

The 2025 housing market marked the first full year following class-action lawsuits that reshaped buyer’s agent compensation.

While sellers are still covering commissions in most transactions, the report warned that could change in a tighter market — potentially creating new barriers for first-time buyers.

For now, Acevedo said, agents are capitalizing on market conditions that in many regions favor buyers.

“We’ve been taking advantage of the situation — getting compensated, even at times more than you usually would have [before the settlement],” he said. “Now we’re able to negotiate our piece through great buyer presentations.”

On the lending side, the report found that nearly one in three Hispanic home purchase originations in 2024 used FHA financing — double the rate of non-Hispanic buyers. But in May 2025, non-permanent residents were barred from accessing FHA loans, a change that affected DACA recipients, temporary protected status holders and others.

Smeraski said reversing that policy is among NAHREP’s top priorities.

“That’s probably one of the number one things that originators have flagged for us,” she said. “They had basically a mad dash to try to push any of their non-permanent residents through in that 60-day window when that was announced.”

Beyond FHA access, she said, the broader lending system needs modernization.

Latinos are more likely to be self-employed or to have side businesses — income streams that do not fit neatly into traditional W-2 underwriting, Smeraski added.

“It’s not that these folks aren’t qualified or that can’t sustain a mortgage — but the system just isn’t set up to most effectively serve them,” she said. “If we can create more opportunities for people that maybe don’t fit in that kind of perfect credit box, that would open the door to a lot of very well-qualified borrowers.”

Opportunity markets and the road ahead

For agents in emerging markets — from Indianapolis to Texas cities that dominate NAHREP’s list of top opportunity markets — Acevedo had straightforward advice.

“Just become a market expert,” he said. “Once you become a market expert, you become the advisor to the families that you’re serving. You best serve them because you help them get the best deal based on what is available in that market.”

The report’s affordability index ranked Indianapolis first among opportunity markets for Hispanic homebuyers, with Laredo, Lubbock and El Paso, Texas, as well as Pittsburgh rounding out the top five. Texas claimed 17 of the top 25 spots.

Smeraski said the resilience of Hispanic buyers in the face of record affordability challenges and political unrest reflects a deeper cultural drive.

“This is something they want, something they strive for, and they’re willing to make it happen,’” she said. “Whether it be that they’re willing to move or they’re willing to bring on co-borrowers — they really will do what it takes. That’s because owning a home is truly a reflection of that American dream. It’s the cornerstone of what they’re looking for.”