Yesterday I Became a Black Homeowner. I'm Emphasizing the "Black" Because There is Still a Great Degree of Inequity in Black Homeownership.

My wife and I closed our first home yesterday, and it is quite the milestone. One that I wish for every Black family that desire to be homeowners, but have been locked out of the process.

At the beginning of March, my wife and I went house shopping with our realtor and found the home that we closed on yesterday (March 29). We had the great fortune of connecting with a seasoned and reputable realtor named Cheryl because my wife is her coalition sister in the Metro DC chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and because Cheryl has decades of experience as a realtor in the Greater Metro DC area she was able to connect us with a great lending company. Our primary lending officer, Hillary, was able to help us secure the bid for our house as she had a strong relationship with the title company. The previous homeowners offered us a seller’s credit. The trio of Cheryl, Hillary, and the title company as well as their assistants worked with us around the clock for roughly a month, and when it was all said and done, a house shopping trip that began the first Saturday of the month ended in a Black man and a Black/Puerto Rican woman closing on their first home purchase.

Of course, there are more specifics as to how this all materialized, but at the risk of disclosing my financial business, I won’t get into all of that, because as the great and wise prophet Tabitha Brown would say, that’s my business. What I will say is that it took my wife Leslie and me years of planning, budgeting and patience as we waited on the best possible opportunity to be in a position to purchase. We relocated from Louisiana 18 months ago, a place where I lived the entirety of my life and Leslie lived half of hers, and at no point had ever put serious consideration into home buying for a variety of reasons. We’ve spent nearly two years living in an apartment building in Hyattsville, Maryland amongst several tenets who appear to be almost half our age. We knew at some point we would eventually purchase a home in Maryland, and had the great fortune of finding a place in Bowie, one of the most prosperous cities for Black people in the U.S., within a relatively short amount of time seriously looking. There was an incredible amount of luck and favor that aligned with our preparation, and for that I am grateful.

I also recognize that for many Black Americans who aspire to homeownership, there is a myriad of systemic inequities that prevent their dreams from actualizing that often has nothing to do with their financial portfolio.