On December 21, the Massachusetts Community and Banking Council issued its 22nd annual Changing Patterns report on home-purchase mortgaging lending in Boston, in Greater Boston and statewide. Changing Patterns 22 notes the large, though declining, role that higher cost government backed loans (insured or guaranteed by the FHA, VA or USDA) plays in mortgage lending to traditionally underserved borrowers and neighborhoods, calling it a symptom of the lack of availability of prime conventional loans to those borrowers and neighborhoods. It finds that CRA-covered lenders offer more of their loans as conventional loans than other lenders. It also finds that the 2014 loan denial disparity ratios between whites and other racial and ethnic groups remain quite similar to those in 2004, except for one: in the city of Boston, the black/white disparity ratio has risen to a historically high level of 3.6 in the past four years. It also finds dramatic differences in home-purchase lending among Boston’s 20 major neighborhoods: black borrowers received no loans in seven neighborhoods, while receiving 16-49% in three neighborhoods; and Latino borrowers received no loans in two neighborhoods and 16-18% of loans in three neighborhoods. The report also includes detailed town by town data in online tables.
