Home ownership has been the primary means for most American families to build and pass on inter-generational wealth. However, government-sanctioned racial discrimination in housing and mortgage finance markets robbed many families of this opportunity, and today’s racial homeownership gap is barely changed from the levels of more than 50 years ago. Closing the homeownership gap is essential to closing the racial wealth gap. Additionally, predatory mortgage lending practices drained trillions in wealth from families, especially Black, Latino, low wealth and low-income Americans. CRL successfully advocated for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which has made the mortgage market far safer for consumers. CRL is building on this progress by working to ensure that all credit-worthy borrowers have access to fair, affordable, and sustainable mortgages. And that policy makers and market participants develop solutions that are appropriate to respond to the scale of this housing crisis.
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Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners
A CRL study released in December 2006, revealed that millions of American households would lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market. The "Losing Ground" study was the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006. CRL found that despite low...
Calculated Risk: Assessing Non-Traditional Mortgage Products
Committe: Senate Subcommittees on Housing & Transportation and Economic Policy
CRL Comment on OCC Working Paper #2006-1, "Foreclosures of Subprime Mortgages in Chicago"
In a working paper released last month, Morgan Rose, a researcher from the OCC, analyzes a set of subprime loans originated in Chicago to determine the impact of selected lending terms on the likelihood of foreclosure. The study finds that loans with prepayment penalties and balloon payments are 22 to 117 percent more likely to foreclose than those without such...
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: Newly Collected Data and What It Means
Committe: House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
Unfair Lending: The Effect of Race and Ethnicity on the Price of Subprime Mortgages
African-Americansand Latinos get high-priced subprimemortgages far more frequently than whites -- even when they are equally qualified, according to a groundbreaking new study from CRL. Lenders say they charge more because African-Americans and Latinos on average have shakier credit histories, which makes lending to them riskier. But that explanation is simply wrong. In the most extensive study of its kind...