That news is perhaps to be expected given the inequities that exists in the housing market, including the quality of financing people have access to and the prospects of the neighborhoods they are buying into. The researchers note that neighborhood location, predatory loan practices, and how long families were able to hold on to homes all likely played a role in how white and black families fared during the early aughts.

Newman and Holupka also investigated how black families would have fared if they had chosen to rent instead of buy. In order to do that, they took a look at the net worth (that is all assets minus all liabilities) for families that did have a mortgage and families who didn’t. Generally, net worth for renters increases marginally each year—as workers get raises, or families pay down debt. For first-time homebuyers, those increases can be much faster, thanks to both the acquisition of a large asset and home value appreciation. But they found that in general black families would have been better off if they hadn’t bought homes at all.

According to the data white families who rented would have ultimately gained $6,600 between 2005 and 2011—less than they earned as homeowners, but still a nice gain. But for black families the choice to rent instead of buy could have moved them from negative to positive net worth. In two years, between 2005 and 2007, wealth would have increased to $1,300, and it would have hit $2,700 by 2011.

Those gains, to be certain, aren’t astronomical, but they are also certainly more promising than the tens of thousands in disproportionate losses that black homeowners experienced and are still trying to overcome. For black homeowners, there were never enough financial gains to offset the massive losses they sustained. But sadly, renting may not be much of a solution. In most places, rent just keeps on rising, which means fewer options for families already struggling to build wealth.