Yareli Flores was 10 when her family came to Portland from Mexico. She, her mother and two brothers lived in a Northeast Portland apartment and struggled to get by. Buying a home wasn't within reach, she says.
In May, Flores, now 32 with a 1-year-old daughter of her own, bought her first home — a three-bedroom just east of the Portland city line in the Centennial School District. There's a yard and good grocery stores nearby. No landlord to answer to. Owning the home, she says, is a special feeling.
Flores' new neighborhood has seen an increase in Latino-owned homes in recent years. It's a rare area in which the homeownership rate for Latinos is on par with that for whites. The Census Bureau pegs both at about 67 percent.
The rise in Latinos buying homes in areas like Centennial is part of a larger trend: Amid Portland's affordable housing crisis, Latinos have managed to buy a lot more homes around the metro area.
Between 2010 and 2015, there was an 11 percent increase in Latino-owned homes in the tri-county area. Those 2,000 additional homes are concentrated primarily in Multnomah and Clackamas counties and near Beaverton. That marks a departure from a decade ago, when more rural parts of Washington County near Cornelius and Forest Grove were metro Portland's Latino epicenter.
Besides Centennial, areas that saw a notable rise in Latino homeownership include the Southeast Portland neighborhoods of Brentwood-Darlington and Lents and the city of Fairview, out past Gresham.
Cristofer Hernandez (seated), his wife (not pictured), son Amorius Ancira (right) and their dog Lucy moved into a home of their own in Gresham this summer. RISING RENTS, MORE EDUCATION
Javier Alomia, a bilingual Portland real estate agent, says most of his Latino clients have been drawn to homeownership by one especially prominent factor: rapidly rising rents. "Many clients realize their rent is being raised by 20 or 30 percent and that it might be cheaper to own," he said.
Before Flores seriously considered buying a home for her and her daughter, she was paying $875 a month to rent a one bedroom and faced a $100 a month increase if she renewed her lease. She opted to look for a two-bedroom rental, but discovered rents in her area hovered around $1,200.
So she shopped for a home of her own, with a price limit of $200,000. Ultimately, she chose the Centennial three-bedroom, which cost $220,000. Her monthly mortgage is $1,300, not much more than she would have paid to rent.
Another factor prompting more Latinos to buy has been the increase in Latino-specific homeownership education in recent years, Alomia said. That has made buying a home feel within reach for longtime renters who didn't think it was a possibility.
Vanessa Palacios has rented in the Portland area since she came to the city from Mexico 13 years ago and currently lives in West Portland near Beaverton. She says with continual rent increases, she'll likely be priced out of her apartment soon. She decided to look into buying a home in a more affordable area a few months ago, getting in touch with Hacienda, a Portland-based organization that promotes Latino homeownership.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, she attended one of the organization's weekly homeownership workshops, during which prospective homebuyers are given lessons on various aspects of the process. She got tips on choosing a lender and an explanation of the "4 Cs of credit."
Carlos Garcia, a housing counselor at Hacienda, said despite some recent gains, ownership disparities persist, with whites and Asians much more likely to own homes than Latinos. That's partially because the wave of foreclosures in the years after the recession disproportionately affected Latinos and other communities of color, he said.
In Multnomah County, 33 percent of Latino households own their own place, compared to 58 percent of white households.
"We're focused on trying to decrease that gap, but it's a very challenging market," said Ernesto Fonsesca, CEO of Hacienda.
When Cristofer Hernandez (red sweater) looked for a new home for himself, his wife Mandy Ancira Hernandez (not pictured) and son Amorius Ancira (blue shirt), they found what they were looking for at a price they could afford in Gresham. Between 2010 and 2015, there was an 11 percent increase in Latino-owned homes in the tri-county area. Sky-high prices close to downtown Portland meant nost of those homes were outside the Portland city limits. PRICED OUT OF CITY OF PORTLAND
It's becoming harder to find homes in Portland city proper within the price limitations of many Latino families, he said. So many clients buy in Gresham and others have to go even farther out, to places such as Sandy.
Cristofer Hernandez, who recently bought a home in Gresham, moved to the Portland area with his wife over a decade ago from the Bay Area, thinking houses would be more affordable. But the process of finding and buying the right home was much longer and more complicated than he expected. He originally sought a place in Northeast Portland, but as prices in that area continued to rise, he and his wife had to look father east.
Some Latino families face extra challenges buying a home, Garcia said, including not speaking English well or knowing little about credit.
Erasmo Mejia and his wife, Rosa Gonzales, have lived in Portland since they emigrated from Mexico 15 years ago. They currently rent a two-bedroom apartment near David Douglas High School. But with rent prices increasing, they have been looking to buy a home for about three years.
They want a place of their own and space for their two children, who are 9 and 5. But both Mejia and Gonzales only speak Spanish, and they say they had difficulties finding information about the homebuying process. They contacted Hacienda about a year ago and say it has helped them. One of the couple's biggest challenges has been building credit, which Mejia says he didn't realize was so important until recently.
"Credit is not necessarily something that's embraced in our culture," Garcia said. "Many Latinos are inclined to stay in the cash economy."
Mejia and Gonzales hope to stay in the neighborhood they live in now, but are willing to go wherever a good home takes them. "It's for the kids," Mejia said.
Claudia Pobanz, a Chilean-American realtor who has worked with Latino families in the Portland area for the past 12 years, said many of the Latino clients she works with are second-generation children of immigrants, like Flores.
"Their parents may not have had the means or the education to buy a home," she said, "but the kids are able to fulfill that goal that a lot of immigrants have."
-- Janaki Chadha