A new study has been released that illuminates how mortgage lenders have denied applications based upon ethnic-sounding names.
The three-year study was led by Andrew Hanson, a professor of economics at Marquette University in Michigan. His team used emails to test mortgage loan originator responses to borrower queries with stereotypically black and white sounding names according, reports USA Today:
Hanson and his associates sent two identical emails to more than 5,000 lenders, one from a person with a “white” sounding name and another from a person with a “black” sounding name.
“White” names included Maxwell Baker, Spencer Miller and Jake Krueger. “Black” names included Jamal Washington, Terrell Banks and DaQuan Booker. Names were categorized by examining New York City birth records and determining which race the name was more likely to be associated with it. The emails also included information about the borrower’s low credit score, high credit score or did not contain credit score information at all.
After sending out the letters, Hanson and his colleagues tracked whether and how the MLOs responded.
“Our results show that MLOs discriminate on the basis of race and treat clients differently by their reported credit score,” the study conclusion said. “We find that on net, 1.8% of MLOs discriminate by not responding to inquiries from African-Americans while responding to inquiries from white clients. We find larger net response differences across credit score types, with 8.5% of MLOs responding to clients in our high-credit-score group while not responding to clients who do not report a credit score.”
Hanson and his colleagues also found that MLOs offer more details about loans and are more likely to send follow-up correspondence to “white” borrowers.
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