Discrimination in Mortgage Industry

[MrChairman]

I know many of you followed my homebuying journey through the entire year. Although I have always heard about discrimination as far as loans and such, the only thing I had ever applied for in person was a car loan and credit cards and really didn't feel I had ever been discriminated against. After we closed on our home, my wife brought up the subject. I didn't give it much thought but it's been popping in and out of my head for the past few weeks. I have come to the conclusion that I think we were discriminated against surely based on age and kind of on the fence about race. Here is the background: I am late 20's and my wife is early 20's. Were both black. I did notice that the reps at NVR/Ryan Homes weren't really receptive to us when we went to look at the model. I think this was mainly due to age. They pulled our credit reports and told us we didn't qualify. Two weeks later I went to SunTrust and talked with another loan officer. He was a Hispanic lady. Pulled our reports and gave us an instant pre qual letter. After we presented this to NVR, now they wanted to do business with us. I started to shop around again, found Certus Bank online. This was the easiest lender to deal with out of the entire process. No issues, hiccups, and they always answered my questions promptly. I never met face to face with anyone. Now while I don't know for sure if discrimination happened, I do have my suspicions. I am just curious has anyone else experienced anything like this weather it be race, ace, sexual preference, ect.

[Beasley12]

Nope...and I am a minority as well. I went in with decent credit and excellent work history.....plus I am a single mother.

[cclee]

It may have just been age, i'm white and when buying homes in our 20's, we were always kinda looked down on, like we had no business buying a home?  I thought it was just me but then my younger sister said she felt she was looked down on when looking at models and felt it was her age.  I guess only people in their 40's can afford a home?  It still happens when buying cars lol.

[ezdoesit]

I don't know all the particulars but playing devil's advocate maybe you didn't qualify for their mortgage because they deal with a particular lender and you didn't have the score necessary to qualify.  That wouldn't mean you qualify with someone else just them.  That is probably why when you went back they treated you a lot different.  I can't see why a builder would not want to sell a house if they have an opportunity to do so. 

Congrats on your mortgage approval and good luck on your future home purchase.

[LLMT]

I agree on the age issue...we bought our first home when I was 24 and I had issues with realtors/brokers talking to me like I was 12 and not wanting to show higher priced properties even though they were well within our preapproved amount. Very frustrating! We are starting to look again 10 yrs later and our budget is not substantially different (I don't really want to pay much more than we do now) but we are definitely taken more seriously.

[Christian123]

It's really hard to say.  My husband and I are both balck and got married a litle over a year ago.  We are in our early 30s, but I look very young for my age and on weekends dress down in jeans  or a casual jumpsuit depending on my mood.  Combined we make almost $300k and have very little detbt.  We went to a builder in a neighborhood that we were interested in and the home prices started at $650k. The Sales Counselors (who were both black) did not want to answer any of our questions and quickly pointed us to another section of the neighborhood where the home prices started in the $400's without even asking any qualifying questions.  At that point we were not intersted in any houses and wouldn't dare give them a dime of our money.

It's hard to say the reasons behind the things that these sale people do- I think that they just jump to their own conclusions and decide how much effort they would like to put into assisting you based on their conclusions.

[frugalQ]

It's funny, my DH and I are both black and are looking for new homes in the 400k range.

Like the poster above, the one time where we felt like we were not taken serious was at a new community where the sales person was also black. DH and I joked and said we must be too dark for her tastes (lol)...and it was her loss because we marked that subdivision off of our list.

I can't say it was age. DH and I turned 40 this year, and although we don't look 40 (lol), we look older than 30. But I'm willing to bet that the next potential buyer that came through the door was treated differently.

[StartingOver10]

I see what you are talking about all the time when it comes to the builders sales reps. But I see it no matter what the color is and/or age. It's almost a snob sort of thing.

I'm an agent. I get the exact same treatment you are describing from the builders sales reps, not all of them, but many. It doesn't even seem to matter the price point of the neighborhood, Also, I'm female and white. So I don't think it comes to discrimination as much as snobbery (can't think of a better word). It is frustrating to me to see sales reps go down this road because it gives all of us a bad name. The really ironic thing is this: those reps are exclusive representatives of the builders. They are the least experienced when it comes to actual real estate (they have a very limited role in the process and usually are noobies in the business). They typically know nothing about financing. Even the selection process for upgrades has changed now so the sales reps don't handle that part. They really only handle the showing and initial contract signing.  Yet, they treat customers, clients and Realtors with an attitude! You do the right thing by buying somewhere else where the reps are decent if you have a choice. Sometimes we don't have a choice because the builders offers a great location and/or floorplan at a good price point.

Mr.. Chairman, in your particular circumstances, just based on your posts here, I think they tried to roll over you with the "big builder machine" rather than take care of you like a valued customer. Their in-house lender clearly couldn't handle your particular loan to any degree of professionalism or handle it in any way that was beneficial to you. It was a good thing you knew what to do to get good service (find another lender that had a better program). I have purchased, personally as well as professionally, homes through large builders and had to move my financing out to another lender since I'm self employed because the builders lender couldn't offer the right product either.

Builders and builders lenders get easily confused when you don't "follow the program" and do exactly what they have set up for you. Naturally, what they have set up is not as good for you, generally, as what you can do on your own. As you already found out with your new lender. I don't think it is discrimination so much as a little arrogance mixed in with a lot of ignorance and a whole lot of attitude. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's what I see here in my area.  

[tooleman694]

I guess it is possible, but I don't see it happening..

Selling homes and mortgages pays the bills for the people selling them.. They shouldn't care what color or what age you are as long as they are getting paid..

The home we bought, the sales lady took us very serously. And we are a good 10 years or more younger then the rest of the owners here.

[frugalQ]

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@tooleman694 wrote:

I guess it is possible, but I don't see it happening..

Selling homes and mortgages pays the bills for the people selling them.. They shouldn't care what color or what age you are as long as they are getting paid..

The home we bought, the sales lady took us very serously. And we are a good 10 years or more younger then the rest of the owners here.

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tooleman, No matter what your job is, in your professional life, you shouldn't care about the color of one's skin, or their age, or sexual preference.  Unfortunately, that's not the real world.  There are a lot of people who allow their prejudices guide their professional lives.  You may not have come in contact with it, but it's still there.

StartingOver, yes, I can see it being snobbishness.  Although we've only had that one undesirable experience, I've always wondered if we would be treated differently if we didn't drive up to some of these sales offices in a nice vehicle.