Minority Borrowers Disproportionately Damaged by Foreclosure Crisis

The report – Foreclosures by Race and Ethnicity: The Demographics of a Crisis – found that while the majority of families who have lost their homes are non-Hispanic and white, African-American and Latino families have been disproportionately affected relative to their share of mortgage originations. Among recent borrowers, CRL estimates that nearly 8 percent of both African-American and Latinos have lost their homes to foreclosure, compared to 4.5 percent of whites.


These racial and ethnic patterns are likely to continue in the future, CRL said. According to the report, non-Hispanic whites represent the majority of at-risk borrowers, but African-American and Latino borrowers are more likely to be at imminent risk of foreclosure – which refers to the number of borrowers who are two or more payments behind on their mortgage combined with those who are already in the foreclosure process. While 14.8 percent of non-Hispanic white borrowers are considered at “imminent risk,” 21.6 percent and 21.4 percent of African-American and Latino borrowers fall under this category.

When the number of homes that are in imminent danger of foreclosure is combined with homes already lost, CRL estimates that 17 percent of Latino homeowners, 11 percent of African-American homeowners, and 7 percent of white homeowners have already lost or are at imminent risk of losing their home.