The decline of the immigrant homeownership advantage

the long version

In the past, working-age immigrant families in Canada's large urban centres had higher homeownership rates than the Canadian-born. Over the past twenty years however, this advantage has reversed, due jointly to a drop in immigrant rates and a rise in the popularity of homeownership among the Canadian-born. This paper assesses the efficacy of standard consumer choice models, which include indicators for age, income, education, family type, plus several immigrant characteristics, to explain these changes.