Historically, homeownership rates have been generally calculated as the share of homes occupied by their owners. Michael Neal, a housing finance expert at the Urban Institute, spoke with The Washington Post about the implications of this approach, which attributes a head of household’s demographic characteristics to the entire household. Neal noted, “There are interracial couples where the head of household is not Black; we might be missing some families where there’s homeownership by a Black person,” he said. “In some cases, this can really matter for being accurate and providing accurate measures for policymaking.” 

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