ShareHomeownership rates for Black and Hispanic Americans have lagged those of White Americans for decades. Achieving homeownership largely depends on access to mortgage credit. NAR commissioned new research that reviews three major types of alternative data that could be used to evaluate a consumer’s creditworthiness: credit proxies, banking data, and, non-financial personal data. Each form of alternative data is evaluated using a newly developed five-factor “SCALE” framework that incorporates important considerations in the data’s predictive power.
On April 8, 2021, NAR hosted a virtual event, moderated by award-winning real estate journalist Michele Lerner, which featured a Q&A presentation on the research by authors, Vanessa G. Perry and Ann B. Schnare. The Q&A presentation was followed by a panel of speakers discussing what others are doing to address and understand the racial homeownership gap and the broader environment related to access to credit, fair lending, and pandemic implications.
