Total households served jumped 14 percent year-over-year.
As Labor Day approaches, the Center is finalizing its annual impact report for 2018. The main takeaway from the data we’ve crunched is that consumer demand for homeownership education and advising services continues to increase. The Center and its Network partners worked with nearly 20,000 households last year, which equates to a 14 percent increase over the number of households served in 2017.
The data also show continuation of an encouraging trend toward focusing on those households facing the most barriers to achieving homeownership. A full 89 percent of our homebuyer education and advising clients were first-time homebuyers last year, and a quarter of these individuals also were first-generation buyers. Additionally, 63 percent of the households we worked with in 2018 were households of color. On the foreclosure counseling side, the Center and its partners worked with households to prevent nearly 1,000 foreclosures during 2018.
This work is making a real difference in the lives of everyone in our state. We’re privileged to have so many excellent and dedicated Network partners and staff taking part in this work, and we look forward to continuing the push to lower the homeownership gap between white households and households of color throughout Minnesota.