California foreclosure rates and mortgages by race

In response to my new VDARE.com article on what the data show about the origin of the mortgage meltdown in California -- i.e., that there's a very close correlation in California's top 20 metro areas between minority lending (especially minority subprime lending) in 2006 and foreclosure filing rates in 2009 -- I was asked about other correlations.

I'm happy to oblige below, but I would recommend that you read my VDARE.com column first to see the highlights graphed, then come back here to wallow in the correlation coefficients in tabular form.

So, here are the correlation coefficients between RealtyTrac's Q1-2009 foreclosure rates for the top 20 metro areas in California and the federal government's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database records of racial groups' prime and subprime shares of total mortgage dollars in 2006.

"r" is the correlation coefficient, which runs from -1.00 (perfect inverse correlation) to 1.00 (perfect correlation). In the social sciences, 0.2 is typically considered low, 0.4 moderate, and 0.6 high.

Race	Type	Share	r
Total	Total	100%
Total	Prime	73%	-0.90
Total	Subprime	27%	0.90
NH White	Total	44%	-0.78
NH White	Prime	38%	-0.83
NH White	Subprime	6%	0.21
Not NH White	Total	56%	0.78
Not NH White	Prime	35%	0.50
Not NH White	Subprime	21%	0.89
Asian	Total	15%	0.18
Asian	Prime	12%	0.06
Asian	Subprime	3%	0.48
Black	Total	5%	0.48
Black	Prime	2%	0.42
Black	Subprime	3%	0.51
Hispanic	Total	31%	0.67
Hispanic	Prime	16%	0.51
Hispanic	Subprime	15%	0.78
Other	Total	5%	0.02
Other	Prime	4%	-0.36
Other	Subprime	1%	0.62
Hisp & Blacks	Total	36%	0.79
Hisp & Blacks	Prime	19%	0.62
Hisp & Blacks	Subprime	17%	0.87
NAMs	Total	41%	0.81
NAMs	Prime	23%	0.62
NAMs	Subprime	18%	0.88

You can call up the HMDA data here. (Table 11-3: Conventional Home Purchase First Lien Loans, with "Reported Pricing Data" (subprime) vs. "Not Reported Pricing Data" (Prime)).

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer