http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/in...am-shatters-in-prince-georges-county/?hpid=z1
More black homeowners are underwater
PERCENT OF HOMEOWNERS WITH NEGATIVE EQUITY
UNEQUAL RECOVERY
Now, white homeowners are recovering, but black homeowners are not.
Factors include the effects of predatory lending and lagging home prices in minority neighborhoods.
19921995199820012004200720102013151050
5.5%
WHITE FAMILIES
14.2%
BLACK FAMILIES
SOURCE: Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances.
A shattered foundation
African Americans who bought homes in Prince George’s have watched their wealth vanish
Story by Michael A. Fletcher
Photos by Michel du Cille
Graphics by Darla Cameron, Samuel Granados, Ted Mellnik
Published on January 24, 2015
African Americans for decades flocked to Prince George’s County to be part of a phenomenon that has been rare in American history: a community that grew more upscale as it became more black.
The county became a national symbol of the American Dream with a black twist. Families moved into expansive new homes, with rolling lawns, nearby golf courses and, most of all, neighbors who looked like them. In the early 2000s, home prices soared — some well beyond $1 million — allowing many African Americans to build the kind of wealth their elders could only imagine.
DASHED DREAMS: This is the first part in a series looking at the plight of the black middle class, particularly in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, the nation’s highest-income majority-black county.
Part 2: Half of the loans on newly constructed homes in one Prince George’s County subdivision during the housing boom in 2006 and 2007 wound up in foreclosure.
Part 3: The plight of the Boateng family, who face more than $1 million in debt, shows how some of the people swallowed up by the easy credit era have yet to reemerge.
But today, the nation’s highest-income majority-black county stands out for a different reason — its residents have lost far more wealth than families in neighboring, majority-white suburbs. And while every one of these surrounding counties is enjoying a strong rebound in housing prices and their economies, Prince George’s is lagging far behind, and local economists say a full recovery appears unlikely anytime soon.
The same reversal of fortune is playing out across the country as black families who worked painstakingly to climb into the middle class are seeing their financial foundation for future generations collapse. Although African Americans have made once-unthinkable political and social gains since the civil rights era, the severe and continuing damage wrought by the downturn — an entire generation of wealth was wiped out — has raised a vexing question: Why don’t black middle-class families enjoy the same level of economic security as their white counterparts?
The impact of the financial devastation of the past several years is hardly visible along the quiet, well-tended streets of many Prince George’s neighborhoods. The county has the highest foreclosure rate in the District region, yet few houses appear to be abandoned.
Instead, the slow-motion crisis operates mostly in private, limiting people’s options, constricting their vision and forcing a seemingly endless series of hard choices. Having your wealth vanish means making pivotal life decisions — about where to send your children to school, saving for college, making home improvements and setting aside something for retirement — knowing you have no financial leeway.
“This big gorilla on your back, it changes you,” said Fred Bryant, 40, who lives with his wife and two daughters in a brick-front Colonial featuring a one-acre lot, high ceilings, an impressive two-story foyer and a mortgage far higher than the house is worth. “Sometimes you find yourself boiling mad when you shouldn’t be.”
Fred Bryant, shown with daughter Jayla, lives with his wife, Jennifer, and two daughters in a brick-front Colonial on a one-acre lot.
Jennifer Bryant hugs Foghorn Leghorn as Fred jokes with the cartoon character at Six Flags America in Upper Marlboro.
Bryant and his wife, Jennifer, made it to the middle class after being raised on the edges of poverty. But whatever wealth they had built is gone.
Jennifer Bryant grew up in Prince George’s County, living in a Seat Pleasant apartment complex with her mother and brother. “All I ever experienced was apartment living,” she said. “We moved from one part of the complex to another.” Her father died when she was just 5, and her mother was a homemaker who poured her energies into seeing to it that her children had it better than she did.
Fred’s parents were separated, and his father was disabled and unable to help financially. His mother worked odd jobs in the tobacco fields near his hometown of Maysville, N.C., and other times she relied on public assistance. She raised Fred and his brother in a subsidized two-bedroom apartment that Fred remembers as being little bigger than his current living room and dining room.
$560,000
What Jennifer and Fred Bryant owe on their Prince George’s County home.
$480,000
Estimated value of their home.
$3,900
Monthly payment on the home, which has more than doubled since they moved in.
Still, Jennifer and Fred managed to graduate college, although their mothers could lend only moral support. Today, she works as a supervisor in the federal workforce. He is a manager for a sports memorabilia firm.
The problem is not their income but their home. Once a source of wealth, it is now their biggest financial burden.
The Bryants owe just over $560,000 on their house, which they estimate is worth about $80,000 less than that. Since they moved in 2001, their monthly payment has more than doubled to nearly $3,900 a month — a predicament that arose because of an ill-advised refinancing into a loan whose terms the federal government now deems predatory.
The couple have never missed a mortgage payment. But now they are struggling to hold on. They have pulled their two pre-teen daughters out of private school. They bought inexpensive used cars. Instead of going on vacation last summer, they took the girls to Six Flags America, a nearby amusement park. They have little saved for college or retirement.
“We’re paying and paying, but we can’t get ahead,” Jennifer said.
The sources of wealth
Wealth, the value of what a family owns minus its debts, offers security and privilege that can last for generations. Here's where wealth comes from for black and white American families.
Swipe to navigate →
BACK
NEXT
Black families
$1,128
White families
$180,354
MONEY
The financial component of wealth includes money in bank accounts, CDs, stocks, bonds and other relatively liquid financial holdings, after you subtract what the family owes for installment loans, credit cards and other related debts.
SOURCE: Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. Amounts are averages for 2013. Illustrations by Pablo Amargo. Graphic by Darla Cameron and Ted Mellnik.
Wealth in black and white
The recession and tepid recovery have erased two decades of African American wealth gains. Nationally, the net worth of the typical African American family declined by one-third between 2010 and 2013, according to a Washington Post analysis of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, a drop far greater than that of whites or Hispanics.
The top half of African American families — the core of the middle class — is left with less than half of the typical wealth they possessed in 2007. The wealth of similarly situated whites declined by just 14 percent.
Overall, the survey found, the typical African American family was left with about eight cents for every dollar of wealth held by whites.
Not only is African American wealth down, but the chances of a quick comeback seem bleak. Just over a decade ago, homeownership — the single biggest engine of wealth creation for most Americans — reached a historic high for African Americans, nearly 50 percent. Now the black homeownership rate has dipped under 43 percent, and the homeownership gap separating blacks and whites is at levels not seen in a century, according to Boston University researcher Robert A. Margo.
“There was never a period in American history where the wealth gap was not enormous, but after this most recent recession, the wealth gap went from dismal to even worse,” said Darrick Hamilton, a professor of economics and urban policy at the New School in Manhattan.
For a substantial number of African Americans who remain homeowners, their properties only hurt their net worth. According to the Fed survey, 1 in 7 owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth in 2013, a sharp increase from 2010.
By comparison, just 1 in 18 white homeowners was underwater, an improvement from 2010. Also, African Americans own fewer businesses, stocks and other equities than whites — assets that have all recovered sharply since the recession.
Many researchers say the biggest portion of the wealth gap results from the strikingly different experiences blacks and whites typically have with homeownership. Most whites live in largely white neighborhoods, where homes often prove to be a better investment because people of all races want to live there. Predominantly black communities tend to attract a narrower group of mainly black buyers, dampening demand and prices, they say.
More black homeowners are underwater
PERCENT OF HOMEOWNERS WITH NEGATIVE EQUITY
UNEQUAL RECOVERY
Now, white homeowners are recovering, but black homeowners are not.
Factors include the effects of predatory lending and lagging home prices in minority neighborhoods.
19921995199820012004200720102013151050
5.5%
WHITE FAMILIES
14.2%
BLACK FAMILIES
SOURCE: Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances.
A shattered foundation
African Americans who bought homes in Prince George’s have watched their wealth vanish
Story by Michael A. Fletcher
Photos by Michel du Cille
Graphics by Darla Cameron, Samuel Granados, Ted Mellnik
Published on January 24, 2015
African Americans for decades flocked to Prince George’s County to be part of a phenomenon that has been rare in American history: a community that grew more upscale as it became more black.
The county became a national symbol of the American Dream with a black twist. Families moved into expansive new homes, with rolling lawns, nearby golf courses and, most of all, neighbors who looked like them. In the early 2000s, home prices soared — some well beyond $1 million — allowing many African Americans to build the kind of wealth their elders could only imagine.
DASHED DREAMS: This is the first part in a series looking at the plight of the black middle class, particularly in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, the nation’s highest-income majority-black county.
Part 2: Half of the loans on newly constructed homes in one Prince George’s County subdivision during the housing boom in 2006 and 2007 wound up in foreclosure.
Part 3: The plight of the Boateng family, who face more than $1 million in debt, shows how some of the people swallowed up by the easy credit era have yet to reemerge.
But today, the nation’s highest-income majority-black county stands out for a different reason — its residents have lost far more wealth than families in neighboring, majority-white suburbs. And while every one of these surrounding counties is enjoying a strong rebound in housing prices and their economies, Prince George’s is lagging far behind, and local economists say a full recovery appears unlikely anytime soon.
The same reversal of fortune is playing out across the country as black families who worked painstakingly to climb into the middle class are seeing their financial foundation for future generations collapse. Although African Americans have made once-unthinkable political and social gains since the civil rights era, the severe and continuing damage wrought by the downturn — an entire generation of wealth was wiped out — has raised a vexing question: Why don’t black middle-class families enjoy the same level of economic security as their white counterparts?
The impact of the financial devastation of the past several years is hardly visible along the quiet, well-tended streets of many Prince George’s neighborhoods. The county has the highest foreclosure rate in the District region, yet few houses appear to be abandoned.
Instead, the slow-motion crisis operates mostly in private, limiting people’s options, constricting their vision and forcing a seemingly endless series of hard choices. Having your wealth vanish means making pivotal life decisions — about where to send your children to school, saving for college, making home improvements and setting aside something for retirement — knowing you have no financial leeway.
“This big gorilla on your back, it changes you,” said Fred Bryant, 40, who lives with his wife and two daughters in a brick-front Colonial featuring a one-acre lot, high ceilings, an impressive two-story foyer and a mortgage far higher than the house is worth. “Sometimes you find yourself boiling mad when you shouldn’t be.”
Fred Bryant, shown with daughter Jayla, lives with his wife, Jennifer, and two daughters in a brick-front Colonial on a one-acre lot.
Jennifer Bryant hugs Foghorn Leghorn as Fred jokes with the cartoon character at Six Flags America in Upper Marlboro.
Bryant and his wife, Jennifer, made it to the middle class after being raised on the edges of poverty. But whatever wealth they had built is gone.
Jennifer Bryant grew up in Prince George’s County, living in a Seat Pleasant apartment complex with her mother and brother. “All I ever experienced was apartment living,” she said. “We moved from one part of the complex to another.” Her father died when she was just 5, and her mother was a homemaker who poured her energies into seeing to it that her children had it better than she did.
Fred’s parents were separated, and his father was disabled and unable to help financially. His mother worked odd jobs in the tobacco fields near his hometown of Maysville, N.C., and other times she relied on public assistance. She raised Fred and his brother in a subsidized two-bedroom apartment that Fred remembers as being little bigger than his current living room and dining room.
$560,000
What Jennifer and Fred Bryant owe on their Prince George’s County home.
$480,000
Estimated value of their home.
$3,900
Monthly payment on the home, which has more than doubled since they moved in.
Still, Jennifer and Fred managed to graduate college, although their mothers could lend only moral support. Today, she works as a supervisor in the federal workforce. He is a manager for a sports memorabilia firm.
The problem is not their income but their home. Once a source of wealth, it is now their biggest financial burden.
The Bryants owe just over $560,000 on their house, which they estimate is worth about $80,000 less than that. Since they moved in 2001, their monthly payment has more than doubled to nearly $3,900 a month — a predicament that arose because of an ill-advised refinancing into a loan whose terms the federal government now deems predatory.
The couple have never missed a mortgage payment. But now they are struggling to hold on. They have pulled their two pre-teen daughters out of private school. They bought inexpensive used cars. Instead of going on vacation last summer, they took the girls to Six Flags America, a nearby amusement park. They have little saved for college or retirement.
“We’re paying and paying, but we can’t get ahead,” Jennifer said.
The sources of wealth
Wealth, the value of what a family owns minus its debts, offers security and privilege that can last for generations. Here's where wealth comes from for black and white American families.
Swipe to navigate →
BACK
NEXT
Black families
$1,128
White families
$180,354
MONEY
The financial component of wealth includes money in bank accounts, CDs, stocks, bonds and other relatively liquid financial holdings, after you subtract what the family owes for installment loans, credit cards and other related debts.
SOURCE: Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. Amounts are averages for 2013. Illustrations by Pablo Amargo. Graphic by Darla Cameron and Ted Mellnik.
Wealth in black and white
The recession and tepid recovery have erased two decades of African American wealth gains. Nationally, the net worth of the typical African American family declined by one-third between 2010 and 2013, according to a Washington Post analysis of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, a drop far greater than that of whites or Hispanics.
The top half of African American families — the core of the middle class — is left with less than half of the typical wealth they possessed in 2007. The wealth of similarly situated whites declined by just 14 percent.
Overall, the survey found, the typical African American family was left with about eight cents for every dollar of wealth held by whites.
Not only is African American wealth down, but the chances of a quick comeback seem bleak. Just over a decade ago, homeownership — the single biggest engine of wealth creation for most Americans — reached a historic high for African Americans, nearly 50 percent. Now the black homeownership rate has dipped under 43 percent, and the homeownership gap separating blacks and whites is at levels not seen in a century, according to Boston University researcher Robert A. Margo.
“There was never a period in American history where the wealth gap was not enormous, but after this most recent recession, the wealth gap went from dismal to even worse,” said Darrick Hamilton, a professor of economics and urban policy at the New School in Manhattan.
For a substantial number of African Americans who remain homeowners, their properties only hurt their net worth. According to the Fed survey, 1 in 7 owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth in 2013, a sharp increase from 2010.
By comparison, just 1 in 18 white homeowners was underwater, an improvement from 2010. Also, African Americans own fewer businesses, stocks and other equities than whites — assets that have all recovered sharply since the recession.
Many researchers say the biggest portion of the wealth gap results from the strikingly different experiences blacks and whites typically have with homeownership. Most whites live in largely white neighborhoods, where homes often prove to be a better investment because people of all races want to live there. Predominantly black communities tend to attract a narrower group of mainly black buyers, dampening demand and prices, they say.
I'm from D.C and looking for a house in pg and I still ain't reading all that shyt
If you want to sell, you'd be able to sell that house obviously to a white person, and to an Asian/Hispanic/Black/Arab as well...anybody basically. A house that's worth the same price in Bowie will lose its value over time for a number of reasons I won't go into but, two big ones are blacks not having as much wealth as whites, so the quality of neighborhoods/schools will be worse, and two, investors aren't as willing to build/develop businesses in black areas as they are in white areas, which again is another ding in terms of a house's value. And then when it's time to sell the house, you have to deal with the fact that most non-blacks aren't interested in living in a majority black neighborhood eventhough they would've beaten down the doors to get into a house in Bethesda that's 80% white. So you're pool of potential buyers pretty much is confined to mostly black buyers. Most white people in Washington, D.C. consider PG county to be "Ghetto" 
the only folks who came out fairly clean were the vets cause VA don't play that shyt. 