Minorities received inferior loan terms, study finds

A new study by the Center for Responsible Lending found that blacks and Hispanics were offered risky loan terms three times more than whites.

More specifically, researchers found that blacks and Hispanics with credit scores of 660 or higher were offered subprime and option adjustable-rate mortgages dramatically more than similar white borrowers between 2004 and 2008.

Furthermore, about 25 percent of all black and Hispanic borrowers who were issued a loan in that time period ended up losing their home due to foreclosure, according to the study. That is compared to 12 percent of white borrowers.

“The disparity exists even in the higher-income brackets,” HousingWire reported from the study’s findings.

“The findings presented in this report suggest that we are not even halfway through the foreclosure crisis, as millions of additional families are still at risk of losing their home,” researchers noted in the report. “Meanwhile, Americans of every demographic group – all incomes, races, and ethnicities – have been affected.”