Interesting story out today from the AP: Both legal and illegal immigrants and their children are expected to fuel homebuying demand going forward. Immigrants tend to be younger than native-born residents, and "more likely to be at an age when they're looking for starter homes" so they're buying up the cheaper end of the market, which helps the higher-end of the market, notes the AP. In California in 2005, one-third of recent homebuyers were foreign-born, according to the newswire.
"As we come out of the this housing recession, immigrants will continue to have an ever-larger role," said Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California professor who studies immigrants' upward mobility. "If you were to stop immigration, it would be devastating, because it would eventually pull this huge chunk out of the housing market's foundation."
· Immigrants Lift U.S. Housing Market [Forbes]