Exploring the relationship between the proportion of seriously delinquent mortgages and the proportion of single and/or female borrowers at the census tract level in the Philadelphia MSA

ABSTRACT

While race and ethnicity have been analyzed often in the recent literature on the national foreclosure crisis, there has been little focus on gender and marital status in studies that focus on seriously delinquent mortgages. Merging data sets from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the US Census, we examined differences in the proportion of mortgages that are seriously delinquent at the Census tract level in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Division by gender and marital status. We found that Census tracts with a high proportion of single female borrowers have relatively high proportions of seriously delinquent mortgages, controlling for many other factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreclosure
• gender
• race
• ethnicity
• Philadelphia
• PA metropolitan division

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We selected the Philadelphia Metropolitan Division in order to control for different legal frameworks concerning mortgage originations, refinances, and foreclosures between the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. By selecting the Philadelphia Division we are able to limit the likely and possible influence of other cities within the MSA in addition to limiting variations in the legal framework surrounding mortgage originations and foreclosures.

2. For the NSP 3 data set the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has estimated the number of loans 90 days delinquent or in foreclosure for each Census Tract in America. This estimate was based on a regression model that was comprised of three factors that explain most foreclosures and delinquent loans: (a) Rate of subprime loans. This is measured with HMDA data on high cost and high leverage loans made between 2004 and 2007. These data are available at the Census Tract level; (b) Increase in unemployment rate between March 2005 and March 2010. These data are from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics, at the city and county level; (c) Decrease in home value from peak to trough. Home value data at the Metropolitan area level is available quarterly through March 2010 from the Federal Housing Finance Agency Home Price Index. This estimate is slightly lower than the Mortgage Bankers Association National Delinquency Survey rate of 9.54% for March 2010 and slightly more than the McDash analytics rate of 8.39% as of July 2010. For more details see http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/NSP3%20Methodology.pdf

3. Note the proportion of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black/African American, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic/Latino households do not sum up to 100% due to rounding.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katrin B. Anacker

Katrin B. Anacker is an Associate Professor in the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University in Arlington, VA. She is the current North American Editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy, and the editor of the book The New American Suburb: Poverty, Race, and the Economic Crisis (Ashgate, 2015). Her work has been published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Housing Policy Debate, Housing Studies, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Urban Geography, among others.

Kristen B. Crossney

Kristen B. Crossney is an Associate Professor of Geography and Planning at West Chester University. Her research encompasses many facets of housing and in particular, spatial patterns of predatory lending and the populations that are most at risk.