Lending Practices: Latinos Find Few Low-Risk Loans

Boulder Daily Camera (CO) (04/15/08); Snider, Laura
Statistics culled from the database of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reveal that few Hispanics in Boulder County, Colo., obtain low-risk and low-cost loans. Area Hispanics are 3.4 times more likely than whites to get a high-risk, high-cost, subprime loan, making it the second-toughest market in the country for Hispanics to obtain a good deal on a loan after only Cambridge, Mass., according to a draft report released on April 14 by Colorado's Civil Rights Division. Even Hispanics who earn more than $100,000 were twice as likely as whites who make the same amount of money to receive a subprime loan. Although the data does not factor in creditworthiness and Steven Chavez, director of the division, says it does not prove discrimination, he adds that "it looks suspicious."