Friday, June 18, 2010

Forgetting 1 + 1 = 2

More brilliance in thinking! Foreclosures by Race and Ethnicity: The Demographics of a Crisis

Our new research shows that the foreclosure crisis is not over, and runaway foreclosures continue to drain hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth from families, hitting communities of color the hardest.

  • An estimated 2.5 million foreclosures were completed from 2007 – 2009, and an estimated 5.7 additional ones are imminent.
  • An estimated 17% of Latino homeowners and 11% of African-American homeowners have already lost their home to foreclosure or are now at imminent risk.
  • The great majority of homes lost were owner occupied, as are those at imminent risk of being lost.

And this comes as a surprise how exactly? One of the stated goals of loosening the criteria for getting home loans (including the riskiest sub-prime mortgages) was to increase home ownership among minority groups. Those loans were always the riskiest, so it should come as no surprise that they would be hard hit by foreclosures when the economy hits a prolonged slump.

There is nothing profound in my observation; its simple common sense. Seemingly, it is a sense beyond many these days.

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