The Bay State is dead last in the percentage of black and Hispanic homeowners, well below old Confederate states like Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.

Let that one sink in for a moment. Massachusetts will be vying with New York for last place in the U.S. when it comes to minority homeownership in a report due out this Wednesday by the Washington, D.C.-based Corporation for Enterprise Development.

That a state with such a historically progressive reputation, and a black governor to boot, is apparently such an inhospitable place for homebuyers of color is beyond troubling.

It’s downright shocking. And it should raise all sorts of questions just exactly what’s going on out there in the Massachusetts real estate market.

High Costs, Fewer Opportunities

It certainly doesn’t help that, like New York, we have some of the highest housing prices and most restrictive rules on new condo and home development in the country.

Massachusetts is set to rank No. 50 in CFED’s survey of minority homeownership in states across the country as well as the District of Columbia, according to a CFED spokeswoman.

There was really no statistically meaningful change from last year’s survey, in which Massachusetts had a 32 percent minority homeownership rate. That’s compared to 69 percent for whites, who were 2.15 times more likely to own a house here in the Bay State, according to CFED.

We are in just about a statistical dead heat with New York, with whites 2.3 times more likely to own than blacks and Latinos in the Empire State.

Sadly, we don’t stack up very well with many states in the Deep South, let alone the national average, with a minority homeownership rate of 46 percent across the country in CFED’s last survey, released early last year.

Clearly, like New York, high prices are taking a toll, making it harder for first-time buyers of all races.

Massachusetts is No. 2 in the country when it comes to the average listing price for a four-bedroom, two-bath home, weighing in at $510,736, according to Coldwell Banker Real Estate. Only Hawaii, in a league of its own at $722,964, is higher.

And with lower median incomes and less family wealth on average than whites, minority homebuyers can be at a particular disadvantage.

However, it’s not just the barrier of high housing prices that are at work here.

Compared to many other states, overall opportunities to move from renting to owning are also extremely limited here in Massachusetts.

We are also near the bottom of the pack in the country in terms of new homes and condos and yes, even apartments built each year.

The 12,000 housing units built in Massachusetts through the first 10 months of 2013 were just  a fourth of what was getting done in the 1980s, the last time our state came anywhere near the national average in terms of new construction.

The slow pace of new apartment construction, especially in the suburbs, is especially significant.

It takes away a potential stepping stone to future homeownership in the small towns and suburbs across the state. If you rent in a town and like living there, you are a prime candidate to buy a house there down the line.

Old Prejudices At Work?

Housing discrimination is alive and well in the Hub, as can be seen in a recent probe by the Boston Fair Housing Commission.

The Boston Housing Fair Housing Commission used white and minority testers to check out 20 randomly chosen real estate listings.

There was strong evidence of buyers and renters getting a bum steer by agents and landlords in eight of the 20 listings, who didn’t show the testers all the apartments and homes that were available, The Bay State Banner recently reported.  

It’s worth asking whether similar attitudes and just plain flat-out bigotry are driving the at times-fanatical opposition to new apartment and home construction in the suburbs.

Any larger apartment complex proposed in the Boston suburbs, especially if it includes a smattering of subsidized units, is likely to spark an undercurrent of fear and borderline racist grumbling.

It’s not uncommon for opponents to talk about whatever is being proposed as some sort of public housing project in disguise, with handwringing about the mostly erroneous prospect of Section 8 renters moving into town.

No matter that most of the units are likely to be rented out at fairly hefty market rates.

It’s a sad reflection on the level of ignorance and misinformation in America, circa 2014, even in a state as progressive and relatively highly educated as Massachusetts.

And yes, it’s not hard to see a little old-fashioned racism at work here either.

Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.