Black homeownership in Twin Cities fell to 29% in latest survey, widest gap among comparable metros
The Black homeownership rate in the Twin Cities dropped to 29% in 2024, and the region had the largest gap between Black and White homeownership rates of any comparable metro area in the country, a Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis analysis found.
The regional target — recommended by a housing affordability task force convened in 2019 by the Itasca Project, an employer-led civic alliance — calls for matching the 2020 national Black homeownership rate of 45% by 2030.
The Federal Reserve Bank analysis found that the Minneapolis-St. Paul area indicated by far the largest gap between Black and White homeownership rates, at 46.9%. The next least-equal metro area, Pittsburgh, showed a disparity rate of 33.3%.
"The region's low Black homeownership rate isn't tied to any particular characteristic of its Black population," the report's authors wrote. "Black Minnesotans are younger, have lower incomes, and are more likely to be foreign-born than White Minnesotans, but a detailed analysis we conducted several years ago found that these differences didn't fully explain the homeownership gap at the state level."
Furthermore, the analysis found that the Twin Cities metro area missed all three of its annual housing production and homeownership goals for the first time since the targets were established.
Housing production in the region fell short by close to 6,000 units in 2025, continuing a decline also seen in 2022 and 2023. The regional goal calls for 18,000 new housing units per year.
Affordable housing production also fell well below target. After reaching a high of 3,876 units in 2022, affordable unit production dropped to 1,760 in 2024 — the most recent data available — against a goal of 2,090 new affordable units per year.
And the situation on the ground for rental vacancies isn't helping matters.
"The Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA's rental vacancy rate at 5.4 percent is the third-lowest among its peers. The fewer vacant units available, the more likely prices are to rise," the report's authors concluded.
WCCO has reached out to Minnesota Realtors as well as Minneapolis Area Realtors and are awaiting comment.