Aside from whites, every racial and ethnic group is underrepresented in home mortgage loans in the Northwest Arkansas metro area. When comparing the percentages of the population that each racial and ethnic group makes up to the percentage of applications by those same categories, the results are close but show some disparity. Whites made up 85.2 percent of the population, but have 87.6 percent of the applications for home loans. Hispanics and Latinos are the most underrepresented group, who make up 15.6 percent of the population, but only originate 9.7 percent of loan applications.

The approval rates for all racial and ethnic groups tend to hover between 65 percent and 79 percent, aside from the American Indians & Alaskan Natives. This group had the lowest approval rate, at 53.4 percent, and the highest rejection rate, at 28.8 percent. The group with the highest approval rate was Asians, at 79 percent.

All calculations were derived from Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HDMA) data for conventional and Federal Housing Administration mortgages, as well as population demographics from the 2014 U.S. Census. Seven racial and ethnic groups were accounted for: American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Black/African American, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, White, Hispanic/Latino, and Race Not Available. Provided data included the number of applications, number of loans originated, and the number of loans denied for each group.

Data Table

Questions:

1. I would like to know how these results have changed over time, considering that the demographics of Northwest Arkansas have changed rapidly in the past decade. It would be useful to compare this with HDMA and Census data from the last several reporting years.
2. I would be interested in determining how Northwest Arkansas compares to other metro areas in the state.