From The Root:

What does it take to convince federal watchdogs that mortgage bankers can’t be trusted to make housing loans without discriminating by race and ethnicity?

If they need proof beyond all the obvious observational and circumstantial evidence available to the rest of us, then they should pay attention to a study being released today that was conducted by one of my colleagues at the Center for American Progress. Based on an analysis of 2006 federal mortgage data, researchers found that black and Hispanic borrowers were three times more likely than white borrowers to be saddled with high-priced loans. As defined by the Federal Reserve, a high-priced loan is one having an annual percentage rate at least 3 percent higher than a Treasury security of the same maturity.

“Overall, 17.8 percent of white borrowers were given higher-priced mortgages when borrowing from large banks in 2006, yet 30.9 percent of Hispanics and a staggering 41.5 percent of African-Americans got higher-priced mortgages,” the report said. “Only 11.5 percent of Asians got higher-priced mortgages.”

That, in and of itself, is damnable. But, wait, the data grows more disturbing as you drill deeper into the report.

This study is significant because it focuses on the banks that were “responsible for originating more than 1 of 3 of every higher-priced mortgage in the nation at the height of the housing bubble in 2006.” What’s more, the studied banks “are crucial to restoring the mortgage market to get the housing market back on its feet,” Andrew Jakabovics and Jeff Chapman write.

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