Austin's Hispanic or Latino population is severely underrepresented in the city's booming housing market but that could change in the coming year, a real estate analyst told a business journal.

Hispanic and Latino populations tend to skew younger, compared to white populations, with many of them only now aging into homebuying age, Nicole Bachaud, an economic data analyst with Seattle-based Zillow, told Austin Business Journal.

"As a result of that, we're going to see the homeownership rate increasing as well," Bachaud said in the Austin Business Journal story published Sept. 16. "So that's one of the reasons we've seen that gap closing, and it's going to hopefully continue to close if homeownership rates continue to increase at the rate they have been."

Bachaud's observations would be an improvement over the current rate of Hispanic or Latino under representation in Austin's housing market. A third of Austin residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, the business journal reported, citing U.S. Census Bureau data. However, just less than half of Hispanic or Latino household in greater Austin own their own home, substantially less than the approximately 64% of white households in the city.

That homeownership rate among Hispanic and Latino in Austin is the lowest of any large metro area in Texas.

The journal is not the only news publication that reported last month about the disparity in Austin between Hispanic or Latino homeownership compared to white households. KVUE ABC reported in a Sept. 20 news story, which cited a Zillow study, that while the wealth gap between Latin and white households nationwide, there's still a long way to go toward completely closing that gap.

Austin's Latinx homeownership rate gap, relative to white households, is -15.7 points, compared to -15.9 in Dallas and -18.4 in Houston, according to the Zillow study.

Meanwhile Austin's Latinx home value gap, relative to white households, came in at -20.1% in the study, compared to -23.4% in Dallas and -23.8% in Houston.

The implied housing gap in Austin is -39.7%, compared to -40-9% in Dallas and -43.3% in Houston.

Bachaud told the journal that she does see the wealth gap reducing but cautioned that more fully closing the homeownership gap will require intervention.  

"It's going to take a lot of movement even to just stay at this status quo, where things are going now," she said. "It’s going to require Latinx home values to grow 10% faster than overall home values…it’s going to take a lot of effort and intentional policies to help close this gap."