Share
Access to mortgage refinance loans declined in communities of color from 2008 to 2009, while increasing in mostly white neighborhoods, a study by a coalition of community watchdog groups found.
In Charlotte, conventional refinance loans in neighborhoods with a minority population below 10 percent increased 105.5 percent from 2008 to 2009. In majority-minority neighborhoods, new refinance loans dropped by 4 percent, according to the report released Thursday.
In mostly white areas, 15 percent of conventional refinance loans were denied, compared to 37.4 percent in minority areas, according to the fifth annual report.
The study examined refinance lending in Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York City and Rochester, N.Y. In those seven cities, conventional refinance loans increased 125 percent in predominantly white neighborhoods, while declining 17 percent in communities of color.
In those cities in 2009, lenders were more than twice as likely to deny refinance loans to homeowners in communities of color as they were to homeowners in majority white neighborhoods.
"Lenders are loosening up credit in predominantly white neighborhoods, while continuing to deprive communities of color of vital refinancing needed to aid in their economic recovery," said Adam Rust, director of research at the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, one of the seven groups that authored the study.
