Black borrowers denied more often in South.

1993 HMDA data show that blacks who want to buy a house will have a better chance of having their loan approved west of the Mississippi River (see chart below). The data also show that Southern stereotypes prevail: blacks are less likely to get their loans approved in many Southern metropolitan statistical areas.

Mortgage Marketplace examined HMDA data broken down by metropolitan statistical areas that pointed to the South as having the worst cities for black mortgage loan application approvals. Eight Southern cities made the top 10.

HMDA data, which has been criticized as incomplete and not giving a full lending picture, doesn't include reasons for denial or credit history of applicants. Nevertheless, the fact that the denial rate in these MSAs is about twice as high as the national average of 22.81% suggests racism could be a factor.

The Mortgage Marketplace list counts only MSAs in which there were at least 10 applications for loans filed by blacks. Otherwise, Casper, Wyo., would have topped the list because it had only one black applicant and denied that person a mortgage, for a 100% denial rate.

The 10 most likely cities where loans from black applicants would be approved were from the states west of the Mississippi with the exceptions of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.Three MSAs-- Provo-Orem, Utah, Rochester, Minn. and Great Falls, Mont.--tied for first place with no denials of loan applications from blacks. Other areas tied were Appleton-Oshkosh- Neenah, Wis., Bloomington, Ind., and Iowa City, Iowa, for eighth place. In the 10 best MSAs, black applicants were more than twice as likely to have their loan approved.

A total of 38 MSAs out of 341 were excluded because they had fewer than 10 mortgage applications.

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