Racial bias

Plaintiffs seeking class certification claim the bank uses an underwriting system that discriminates against minority mortgage applicants.

Members of the LGBTQ community were most likely to have experienced housing bias, according to a Zillow survey, which also found many people don't recognize how fair lending laws could help.

As part of the settlement, Loandepot will beef up its appraisal policies and practices, it announced.

The Justice Department and the CFPB are increasingly relying on emails among employees that contain discriminatory comments to strengthen their hand in cases against lenders.

A mixed-race couple claims a "whitewashed" valuation in 2023 returned a price 39% higher than the depository-approved result a year earlier.

Across the nation, over 700,000 Black families are "income mortgage-ready," or able to spend 30% or less of their income on a home loan for the typical house in their local market.

Significantly more Americans own a home now than a decade ago, but the disparity between Black homeownership rates and those of other racial and ethnic groups has grown wider, according to the National Association of Realtors.

A look at Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data of similarly situated conforming applicants also finds some lenders' own comments for the rejection doesn't match up with the reason given, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said.

As part of a settlement with the Justice Department, Patriot Bank must invest more than $1 million of the total in a loan subsidy fund for minority homeowners and take other corrective steps in its everyday business. The bank denied any wrongdoing.

The lawsuit accuses Navy Federal of violating the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act after a CNN report that the lender approved a lower percentage of Black and Latino mortgage applicants.

A Connecticut-based couple sued the bank and Cavanaugh Appraisals, LLC for denying them a refinance in 2021 because of racial bias.

Black, Hispanic and Asian homeowners had a 44%, 32% and 30% denial rate for HELOC products, while white homeowners had a 23% denial rate, an analysis of HMDA data by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found.

A report from the state's attorney general found Black and Latino households end up paying that combined amount more in origination fees, interest rates and other associated costs, in addition to seeing higher rates of loan denials.

Two separate programs providing as much as $10,000 in assistance are open to eligible borrowers in the Philadelphia area.

Black Americans experienced denial rates of 16.4% in 2022, up from 15.7% the year before, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council said last week.

Wells Fargo directed its bilingual team to steer customers away from products with no closing costs toward "predatory lending options" without disclosing the costs, in part by refusing to provide Spanish-language written materials, according to the complaint.

Six regulatory agencies are seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would establish best practices for using automated valuation models to assess collateral.

The Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania-based financial institution, from 2017 to 2021, did not sufficiently serve the credit needs of majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia, the DOJ alleges.

Artificial intelligence can help cut bias out of credit models. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should make it easier for lenders to adopt it.

The California Reinvestment Coalition, the group behind the assessment, is calling for increased nonbank oversight.