Diversity and equality

It is essential to place the central focus on race, to bring nondepository mortgage lenders under the Community Reinvestment Act umbrella and to address bias in home appraisals.

First introduced in 2020, the Fair Access to Financial Services Act would require banks to serve all customers in a manner similar to existing requirements for hotels and restaurants under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

California counties must now work to remove decades-old racist language in property records that once banned people of color from buying homes in neighborhoods across the state.

Congressional authorization for credit-preference programs in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act could mitigate disagreements that might arise from the equitable housing finance plans, write two partners at K&L Gates.

In the states with the largest share of LGBTQ+ couples, homes cost $116,000 more on average than the states with the lowest share, according to a LendingTree report.

The conflicting analyses of automated valuation models highlight a challenge lenders could face in deciding whether to use them to determine racial disparities in home evaluations.

The bank in a new filing claims some litigants didn’t apply for the refinances at the center of the complaint.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating the bank over allegations that it conducted so-called fake interviews with nonwhite and female job applicants, The New York Times reported Thursday.

A new study has found that Black and Hispanic borrowers are denied conventional mortgages at higher rates than white applicants and pay up to $2,000 more to refinance.

Equitable housing initiatives the government–sponsored enterprises detailed Wednesday will rely on mortgage company uptake of experimental underwriting strategies.

Secret test scenarios last year found a loan originator providing fewer options and services on multiple occasions to Black borrowers compared to white customers.

There is a gaping hole in the financial system in North Minneapolis, where people are preyed upon by payday lenders and fringe bankers, according to Debra Hurston, executive director of the Association for Black Economic Power. Hurston is creating a credit union for this community to help break residents out of a cycle of exploitation and debt. But the issue is far bigger than one city, and the opportunity is one that any bank or credit union can seize.

The pending budget reconciliation legislation should retain measures meant to support minority homebuyers writes the President of the National Association Of Real Estate Brokers.

The brokerage will eliminate its minimum housing price policy, which determines who can access its services, among other changes.

Allowing VantageScore to compete in the mainstream mortgage market may help to close the racial homeownership and financial wealth gap by increasing homeownership opportunities for underserved populations, writes the president and CEO of HomeFree-USA.

The bank asked to move the discrimination case from a Black magistrate to a supervising White district judge, which attorneys for plaintiffs said was an attempt to ‘redline the federal court.’

The municipality and the bank have been at odds over similar issues in the past, and no agency currently has deposit accounts with the lender.

In conversation with Patti Cook, CEO of Finance of America Companies

Wells Fargo won an early round in a lawsuit accusing the bank of running a predatory mortgage lending scheme in the Atlanta area before the 2008 financial crisis and continuing to discriminate against minorities for more than a decade afterward.

Lawmakers also asked officials to include more perspectives from Veterans Affairs and USDA representatives and increase focus on manufactured home valuations.