Bank of America has become the latest financial institution to adopt woke policies, including a special interest rate for qualified borrowers who live in neighborhoods that are predominantly non-white.
According to FOX Business, in late August BoA launched a zero-interest home loan program for Americans living in predominantly Hispanic or Black neighborhoods in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Detroit; Los Angeles; and Miami. Under the program, called the Community Affordable Loan Solution, mortgages will be offered “that do not require closing costs, down payments or minimum credit scores.”
TD Bank in March launched a very similar program, only it includes a $5,000 lender credit qualified buyers can apply to closing costs for a home purchase or for a downpayment. “Qualifying borrowers must meet certain credit and income parameters, as well as reside in a participating market, according to the bank’s press release,” FOX Business reported.
“The current housing market is highly competitive, making it exceedingly difficult for potential homebuyers, especially people of color, to contend if they have limited financial resources for a down payment or closing costs,” said Michael Innis-Thompson, Head of Community Lending and Development at TD Bank, the release added.
“This mortgage offering is designed to ease that burden, provide more equity in the home lending process, and make the dream of homeownership more attainable for Black and Hispanic families,” he said.
The press release noted further:
The product launch is particularly relevant, as a recent TD survey found 46% of respondents consider saving for a down payment to be a roadblock to purchasing their first home, including 44% and 45% of Black and Hispanic homebuyers, respectively.
FOX Business noted further that in February 2021 JPMorgan Chase expanded a grant program to offer $5,000 in closing costs to Americans seeking to purchase homes in mostly minority neighborhoods.
The outlet added: “The most recent data from the National Association of Realtors found that there was a significant racial gap in homeownership in 2020. White households had a homeownership rate around 72.5%, while the homeownership rates for Hispanic and Black households were 51.1% and 43.4%, respectively.”
There is no context provided for the statistics, however, leaving the reader to come to any number of conclusions — such as ‘gee, the lending and real estate industries must be so racist.’
There is no evidence to support that claim, however. And statistics alone don’t tell the entire story — which could simply be because more white families want to own their homes or that they tend to gravitate towards parts of the country that are more amenable to homeownership.
Bankrate.com chief financial analyst Greg McBride told FOX Business there were some downsides to these programs.
“The downsides are that the homebuyers are very dependent on further price appreciation to build a meaningful equity stake and without that, there will not be enough equity to pay the closing costs if plans change and they need to sell in the first few years,” he told the network. He also said that this is the “wrong end of the real estate cycle for zero down payment mortgages.”
“The risk to borrowers has grown because of the surge in home prices,” McBride said. “If home prices stall, or even decline, a no down payment loan could be setting the buyer up for failure as they won’t have much, if any, equity stake in the home.”
Not to mention the overt racism behind such policies.
Once upon a time, we strove to be a colorblind nation. We didn’t always achieve that objective, but it remained nonetheless. What happened?
