this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
196 points (95.8% liked)

News

22890 readers
3595 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A major credit union serving military members and veterans rejected more than half of its Black conventional mortgage applicants

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 158 points 9 months ago (27 children)

A deeper statistical analysis performed by CNN found that Black applicants to Navy Federal were more than twice as likely to be denied as White applicants even when more than a dozen different variables – including income, debt-to-income ratio, property value, downpayment percentage, and neighborhood characteristics – were the same.

This is the important bit, so someone can't argue differences in loan applications.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (14 children)

This is the Internet. You can post comprehensive, overwhelming, irrefutable proof and people will still argue.

Did the article say anything about their payment history? That looks like the only variable they didn't mention.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (13 children)

I noticed the article indicated that the analysis didn't include credit score, available cash deposit, and relationship history with the lender. Honestly, it is usually credit score and cash on hand that gets you approved to receive a loan, debt to income ratio to determine maximum loan amount, and property value to pass underwriting requirements.

CNN's response is basically, we don't have the credit scores because it isn't in the public data, and sort of glosses over it from there.

Now, I'm all for rooting out implicit and systematic bias, especially with systems that have profound effects on life trajectory, and I think credit scores are particularly prone to disadvantage minorities, but I feel like CNN really could have done better here. I know they asked the bank for credit score data, but the bank can't release that information to a third party like that. I would have liked to see CNN being in some more expertise on the subject.

I'm contrast both NPR and NYT have done much more thorough investigative journalism on these topics. NPR in particular did a great podcast on how black home owners were routinely having their homes appraised for markedly less than white peers, and NYT covered discrepancies in underwriting outcomes even when credit history was the same.

I think CNN saw the easy article against this particular bank and took it to fill column space.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"Notably, Navy Federal approved a slightly higher percentage of applications from White borrowers making less than $62,000 a year than it did of Black borrowers making $140,000 or more."

I don't know man. Like, I agree that data is missing, but the data they did pull is very damning. Like how is there a higher approval % of white applicants making less than half the yearly salary of black applicants?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

The poorer people are likely applying for smaller loans so the income to loan ratio could be better.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That's a good point, though the whole thing is weird. I went back and reread the article and this jumped out at me as well:

By some measures, Navy Federal has been successful at lending to minority borrowers: A fourth of its conventional mortgage applicants are Black, and about 18% of the conventional loans it originated went to Black borrowers – a larger portion than almost any other large lender.

It feels like they have some biased criteria in their approval process, but would really need the data to show it. They originate a higher percentage of conventional loans to black borrowers, but possibly as an artifact of having more apply.

One possible reason for the discrepancy with approval rates and income could also be cost of living areas. It would make sense that higher salaries also correlate to more expensive areas.

It would be nice if they shared their statistical results that they talk about being embedded in their processes to prevent bias so we could see what they are keying off of.

load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (22 replies)