The Charlotte Observer, working with new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, reported in August that black borrowers from the largest U.S. lenders were four times more likely than whites to receive high-interest loans.
The Observer analyzed more than 2 million records of home purchase loans from 25 of the largest lenders in the United States. The Observer was able to do the story because federal banking regulators, starting in 2004, began requiring lenders to report whether a loan carries a high interest rate.
IRE and NICAR offer resources for journalists who are interested in using the HMDA data to detect racial disparities or report on housing trends.
A good start for beginning an examination of mortgages is the IRE Beat Book, "Home Mortgage Lending: How to Detect Disparities," by Jo Craven McGinty. The beat book explains how to access and analyze home mortgage data, what questions to ask, and what other resources are available. The Beat Book is available for purchase from the IRE Store at www.ire.org/store or the Resource Center at 573-882-3364.
The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database, available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library, features more than 41 million records of loan applications for 2003, with archival data reaching back to 1992. The data includes demographic information about the loan applicants, as well as the reason for the loan and whether it was accepted or rejected. Journalists can purchase data for the country or a state by calling 573-884-7711. The Database Library hopes to make updated data available to journalists in October.
In addition to these two key resources, the IRE Resource Center offers stories and tipsheets:
"Burrowing into HMDA," by John Byczkowski of The Cincinnati Enquirer provides guidance for journalists looking to dig into the home mortgage data. This tipsheet offers cautions about interpreting the data. (Tipsheet No. 1774)
In "Seeing Red: How to Expose Redlining Practices," Penny Loeb of U.S. News & World Report provides useful background information for journalists working with the HMDA data. (No. 410)
The (Fremont, Calif.) Argus, analyzed home mortgage data and found stark disparities in rejection rates between minority and nonminority applicants. They found that Hispanics and blacks were twice as likely to be turned down in the various counties in California. The article also concentrated on possible ways of solving the problem. (Story No. 21008)
The (Nashville) Tennessean focused on how race played into home mortgage lending in the Nashville area, showing that black home owners were denied for mortgage loans "up to three times more often than whites even when incomes were similar." (No. 21136)
Call 573-882-3364 or e-mail rescntr@ire.org to order copies of these tipsheets or stories.