25 Homeownership for many has been a way to turn a regular expense into an assetbuilding investment in the future, which is especially important given the wide and persistent disparities in wealth by race and ethnicity. But the experience of the past decade suggests that owning a home can, in some circumstances, exacerbate financial difficulties for vulnerable families in a downturn.
The lesson that even a moderate decline in house prices can erase home equity applies broadly, along with the importance of sound underwriting and servicing, but the painful consequences in the recession were greater among minority and low-income homeowners. 26 The fact, discussed earlier, that  22  See Brainard (2016) on the gig economy and the growth of contingent work.