Minorities are treading water at well below their percentage of the population as far as getting mortgages is concerned.
Home Mortgage Data Act data for 2012 from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council show $354 billion in home loans was extended to Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, American Indians and Native Hawaiians. Total mortgage volume for the whole industry came to $2.1 trillion, a hefty 50% increase from $1.4 trillion in HMDA lending in 2011.
The 16.6% minority share was roughly equal to 2011’s share of 17%. This kind of share is representative of the past several years. In 2011, for example, the share was 16.7%.
Minority lending must be somewhat higher, since there is no requirement to self-identify by race on mortgage applications, and many do not. More than $300 billion in mortgages, or about 15%, was not associated with any race.
But even if you assume all the unidentified loans were to minorities (extremely unlikely), that would still be less than their percentage of the population (one third, and growing).
Breaking it down, Asians got the biggest dollar volume of loans, at $165 billion. Hispanics followed, at $109 million. African-Americans received $65 billion in home finance. American Indians got $7.5 billion, just edging out Native Hawaiians, at $7.4 billion.
Hispanics made a big dollar gain last year from 2011, when the total was $74 billion. That’s $35 billion more, or just about 50%. Native Hawaiians made a big percentage jump from the year before, when $4.6 billion was funded. That’s more than a 50% boost.
Wells Fargo ran a clean sweep of the minority categories. Its $50 billion in loans to minorities represented some 15% of all institutions’ volume (more than 7,000 reported HMDA data last year). No other lender made even half as much dollar volume of mortgages last year.
Wells made $24 billion in mortgages to Asians last year, according to the HMDA data. It extended $15 billion in credit to Hispanics, $9 billion to African-Americans, $1 billion to American Indians, and $900 million to Native Hawaiians.
The bottom line here could be relief that loans to minorities haven’t retreated further in an era of tight mortgage credit. But they certainly haven’t gone forward much, either.
