Insights
Market reports, forecast data, industry insights, and more from iEmergent.
When we talk about homeownership in America, the conversation often overlooks the diverse experiences within the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. While aggregate numbers may paint a picture of upward mobility, a closer look reveals a more complex reality—one that highlights stark disparities between subgroups within the broader AAPI umbrella.
Asian borrowers often track closely with non-Hispanic white borrowers across key lending metrics such as loan penetration, approval and denial rates, and homeownership percentages. But these similarities can obscure the unique challenges faced by Pacific Islanders, whose mortgage access and homeownership rates more closely resemble those of Black borrowers—lagging far behind averages and other demographics.
Read our deep dive into the Black homeownership gap >>>
This is a segment that deserves deeper attention. In May, for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we dove into the data to learn more by examining trends in mortgage applications, originations, denials, and homeownership rates among AAPI borrowers. We uncover some of the nuances behind the numbers and call attention to where progress is being made—and where equity remains out of reach.
Here’s what we found.
The AAPI umbrella combines two different populations: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. While these two groups are often lumped together, they are separate segments in the HMDA data (and therefore also in our mortgage forecasts). This means we can differentiate between the two groups when it comes to lending.
Throughout this blog post, we’ll use “AAPI” to reference both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander segments combined. When we reference the groups separately, we’ll use “Asian” and “Pacific Islander.”
The AAPI population is the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. The Asian American population grew from 11.9 million in 2000 to 24.8 million in 2023, including growth in both U.S.-born and immigrant populations.
2024 data from the U.S. Census Bureau reports that Asians make up 6.4% of the U.S. population while Pacific Islanders account for 0.3%. We’ll contrast these population rates with lending rates in the next section.
Lending to AAPI borrowers has been growing at about the same pace as all other race/ethnicity segments: slowly but steadily since 2023.
AAPI Purchase Dollar Originations, 2022-2026
Loans to AAPI borrowers consistently make up ~12% of U.S. purchase dollars—nearly double the 6.4% population makeup.
AAPI Percent of Purchase Dollars
And for loan units, AAPI borrowers make up ~9% of U.S. purchase loans.
AAPI Percent of Purchase Loan Units
This discrepancy between dollar percent (12%) and loan percent (9%) for AAPI borrowers is one of the highest within all borrower segments. In comparison, Black borrowers make up 7% of loan dollars and 8% of loan units. Consequently, this shows us that the AAPI segment has a higher average loan size than the average.
This is an area where we see a split between the Asian segment and the Pacific Islander segment.
2024 Average Loan Size
There’s a more than $150,000 difference between the two groups’ average loan sizes. This tells us that Asians are taking out much larger loans than Pacific Islanders are, likely pointing to higher home prices/values as well.
We’ll continue to explore other differences in upcoming sections but first, let’s look at where each group is taking out loans geographically across the country.
Loans to Asian borrowers are spread throughout the U.S., with pockets in major metro areas like LA, Phoenix, Seattle, NYC, Chicago, and more.
2024 Asian Originations By County
Pacific Islanders, with their much smaller population, show similar geographical trends with the largest concentration, unsurprisingly, in Hawai’i.
2024 Pacific Islander Originations By County
In a breakdown of applications by race/ethnicity, we can see that Asian borrowers made up a larger percentage of applications in 2024 than in 2020, growing from 6.84% to 7.25%. Pacific Islander percent of applications has remained stagnant at 0.26%-0.27%.
Percent of Applications By Race/Ethnicity, 2020-2024
The AAPI application percentages align with population percentages for the most part. However, what happens with these applications diverges for the two groups.
Because population sizes, and therefore application numbers, are drastically different for these two groups, we use percentages to compare apples to apples. By doing so, we see that a much higher percent of Pacific Islander borrower applications are denied than Asian borrower applications.
In 2024, denial rates for applications for the two groups were:
Similarly, fallout rates (the rate of applications that don’t turn into originations for any reason) are much higher for Pacific Islander applicants than for Asian applicants.
Asian Borrower Purchase Application Fallouts, 2020-2024
These charts show that fallout for both groups is growing, but so is the difference between total fallout rates. In 2020, fallout rates for Asian applicants (36.7%) and Pacific Islander (41.5%) applicants were 4.8 percentage points apart. But in 2024, that difference ballooned to 10.6 percentage points.
This discrepancy—lower approval rates for Pacific Islander applicants—is but one factor in a large homeownership gap for this segment.
Homeownership rates—the percentage of households living in homes they own—are another area where the AA and the PI segments of AAPI diverge.
Homeownership Rates
The homeownership rate gap between the two groups is 18.3 percentage points.
Homeownership Rate By Race/Ethnicity
The Pacific Islander homeownership rate is the same as the Black homeownership rate (43.3%). The Asian homeownership rate also lags behind the overall homeownership rate (64.9%) and the non-Hispanic white rate (72.7%).
The differences between the non-Hispanic white homeownership rate and the homeownership rates of the other race/ethnicity segments are historic and deeply ingrained.
AAPI households represent a dynamic and growing share of future homebuyers, yet their mortgage experiences—and outcomes—are far from uniform. And while HMDA data classifies these borrowers as Asian, the AAPI segment is made up of many sub-groups (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.), each with its own culture to consider.
These differences highlight an opportunity for mortgage lenders to move beyond one-size-fits-all strategies and develop targeted approaches that support their communities and the full diversity of AAPI borrowers.
By recognizing and responding to the unique needs of these groups in your communities, lenders can expand their reach, lend to underserved borrowers, and build long-term, sustainable market share.
Here are specific actions lenders can take to better serve AAPI households:
While aggregate AAPI lending numbers may appear strong, they often mask the disparities hiding beneath the surface. And while some communities may have bustling AAPI populations, others may not. That’s why access to detailed, local-level data is so critical.
With iEmergent’s forecasting and market intelligence tools, lenders can:
The AAPI umbrella covers a wide range of experiences—but as the data makes clear, it’s not a one-size-fits-all story. While Asian borrowers tend to track closely with national averages, Pacific Islanders face a very different housing landscape—one marked by higher denial and fallout rates, smaller loan sizes, and a large homeownership gap.
These disparities highlight the importance of looking beyond aggregate numbers when crafting housing policies, mortgage products, and outreach efforts. As the AAPI population continues to grow, so too must our understanding of its internal diversity. Because progress for one group doesn’t mean progress for all.