- When the group in a neighborhood is Asian, race does not appear to exert an influence on Whites’ stated likelihood of buying a home.
- Crime and educational quality matter, but the percentage of Hispanics in the neighborhood has no significant effect on Whites’ home purchasing decisions.
- There is a significant negative effect of Black composition on Whites’ reported likelihood of buying a house.
- About one-quarter of Whites said they would be very likely to buy a house when the racial composition was 15 percent Black or less. But when the neighborhood exceeded 65 percent Black, essentially no Whites said they would be very likely to buy the house, even when crime was low, school quality was high, and housing values were increasing.
- The higher the percentage of Blacks in the zip code of actual residence, the less likely respondents are to buy the home, net of other variables. But the higher the percentage of non-Whites in the respondents’ circle of friends, the more likely they are to buy the home.
- There was an additional effect when the respondent actually had children under 18. In such cases, neighborhood importance increased, as it shapes who the respondent’s children will interact with, where the children are likely to go to school, and other social- and cultural-capital- building opportunities.
- The negative effect of an increasing percentage of Blacks on the stated likelihood of buying a home is greater when whites have children under 18 than when they do not.
- For Whites with children under 18, the estimated coefficient for percent black is three times the size of that for Whites without children under 18.