Variations in Housing Foreclosures by Race and Place, 2005–2012
Matthew Hall
Kyle Crowder
Amy SpringAbstract
This study describes the spatial and racial variations in housing foreclosure during the recent housing crisis. Using data on the 9.5 million visible foreclosures (public auctions and bank repossessions) occurring between 2005 and 2012, we show that the timing and depth of the foreclosure crisis differed considerably across regions and metropolitan areas, with those located in the Mountain and Pacific West regions experiencing the highest foreclosure risks. The crisis was patterned sharply along racial/ethnic lines, with metros and neighborhoods with large black and Latino populations—as well as racially mixed neighborhoods—having high rates of foreclosure. Our analysis also highlights the particular vulnerability of Latino households, who not only had very high individual risk of foreclosures but tended to reside in areas hit hardest by the crisis. The race-stratified geographic patterns of foreclosure revealed here are substantially more complicated than a narrative that depicts only the unique disadvantage of black households during the crisis, and likely reflect some level of specific targeting of minority populations and neighborhoods by predatory and subprime lenders.
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* If ACORN were sending agents out into poor neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and asking the poor hispanic or black occupants if they’d ever considered buying a home, then sat them down and showed them step by step of how to secure a mortgage loan with the shitty job and credit score they had, would that be considered “predatory”?
I thought “community organizers” couldn’t be considered predatory. If they were predatory, that means something was horribly wrong with community organizing, and their leaders should be held accountable, shouldn’t it?
* So, after 15 years of pushing loans to minorities as part of a national effort supported by academics, government, non-government agencies, community/minority activists, the hindsight is this was actually ‘predatory lending.’ As if giving someone a free house they paid nothing to rent for a couple years is that horrible.
Anyone given something they don’t deserve, and told they deserved it, will be worse off for it.
