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The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Recent Homebuyers

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Authors: Moulton, Shawn     Peck, Laura     Bocian, Debbie Gruenstein     DeMarco, Donna     Fisman, Lianne     Abt Associates    

Report Acceptance Date: October 2023 (53 pages)

Posted Date: December 20, 2024



This report describes the overall financial outcomes before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for a sample of low- to middle-income first-time homebuyers who purchased a home by December 2019. The sample of recent homebuyers analyzed in this report participated in HUD’s First Time Homebuyer Education and Counseling Demonstration, but the report does not speak to the impact of housing counseling. This report only analyzes how the sample of homebuyers fared during COVID-19, based on their status as recent homebuyers, regardless of whether they were randomly assigned to the treatment or control group in the FTHB Demonstration.

The analysis uses credit bureau data from July 2017 through December 2021 to examine (1) how the levels in the financial circumstances of the homebuyers changed in July 2020 relative to prepandemic trends in these financial measures. This analysis does not try and separate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic from any national or local pandemic responses or to look at the impact of the intervention tested in the demonstration, but rather interprets the findings as capturing the influence of the pandemic in its totality on this study sample of first-time homebuyers up to December 2021. Findings include that this sample of recent homebuyers had improvements in several financial indicators between 2017 and 2022, including an increase in credit scores, a decrease in nonhousing debt, and a decrease in student loan and mortgage delinquencies. These financial indicator improvements were experienced by a range of recent homebuyer subgroups, including age, gender, race, and ethnicity.



 


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