Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 10, 1994 TAG: 9403100073
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The poll, commissioned by a bankers' group, found that 64 percent of recent homebuyers think discrimination happens in the mortgage-lending process. Eighty-three percent of black homeowners and 60 percent of Hispanic and white homeowners said they think mortgage discrimination exists.
But only 9 percent of all recent homeowners surveyed think they were victims of discrimination, researchers found. Sixteen percent of blacks and 7 percent of Hispanics said they were discriminated against, compared to 3 percent of whites.
The type of discrimination the homeowners said they experienced ranged from racial, ethnic or gender to age, economic status, location of property and the length of time it took to get a mortgage.
Housing regulators were not surprised by the gap between perceived and experienced discrimination. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's office of fair housing received just 500 complaints of lending discrimination in fiscal 1993, out of about 10,000 housing complaints filed that year.
"It's very hard to know you've been discriminated against," said Laurence Pearl, director of HUD's fair housing office of program standards and evaluation, which helped draft the new discrimination definition.
"When you're turned down for a mortgage, usually they'll point out a reason to you, like bad credit or job turnover," Pearl said. "If a loan officer works with a person, frequently those problems can be taken care of. It seems like lenders tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the white borrower, and not the African-American and Latino borrower. I'm not surprised people feel barriers are there."
Stephen B. Ashley, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, which commissioned the poll, said the survey shows banks need to work harder to draw in minority customers.
The Gallup Organization polled 614 people who own homes and 608 who do not, divided evenly by race and ethnicity. Most of the homeowners had been to college and earned more than $45,000 a year. Those who were not homeowners were high school graduates with an average income of $27,360.
by CNB