Real estate market remains biased.

• Position: Your Life

Wealthier minorities are more likely to receive subprime loans than affluent whites, according to a New York University study of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Moreover, black and Latino applicants are mere likely to be denied prime loans--even after controlling for gender and income.

"These findings offer strong evidence for the continuing significance of race in one specific, but crucial, aspect of the housing market: the mortgage application process," claims Jacob Faber, a doctoral fellow at NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

"The historical absence of affordable credit in communities of color and for applicants of color, which created a market void into which subprime lenders grew, was not accidental. While it is not possible, in this study, to identify personal prejudice on behalf of lenders, racial disparities in subprime lending are nonetheless part of a long trajectory of structural, race-based disenfranchisement."

His dataset consisted of 3,819,923 loan applications, of which 1,590,267 (41.63%) were denied, 2,023,247 (52.97%) were approved with a prime rate, and 206,409 (5.40%) were approved with a subprime rate (i.e., an interest rate three or more points above the Federal Treasury rate).

An analysis of these loans showed that black home-purchase mortgage applicants are 2.8 times more likely, Latinos two times more likely, and Asians...