Leaving Gateway Metropolitan Areas in the United States: Immigrants and the Housing Market

Immigration is no longer a phenomenon that is simply affecting gateway metropolitan areas in the United States. This analysis demonstrates that large numbers of immigrants are moving to other metropolitan areas and analyses the housing outcomes of households who currently live in the 14 largest emerging gateways. The findings suggest that those households that move from most gateway metropolitan areas have lower homeownership rates than do households that move from within the metropolitan area. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that immigrants do worse than native-born households that migrate within the US. The study also demonstrates that immigrants living in crowded conditions or having multiple workers in the household have higher homeownership rates than similar native-born households, and that younger immigrants are relatively more successful in attaining homeownership than are similar native-born residents.