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The costs of homes and land in this area can be large barriers to housing choice. Prosperity Unlimited and local government CDBG and HOME programs have made efforts to provide financial support and affordable housing to increase housing choice. Local governments financially and technically support Prosperity Unlimited and Habitat for Humanity which produce affordable housing. These agencies provide homebuyer education and down payment assistance. Additionally, local governments rehabilitate older homes as well as construct new affordable housing in order to make and maintain as much affordable stock as possible. Lending Products and their affects on Fair Housing Prosperity Unlimited, a local nonprofit and CHDO in Cabarrus County, identified new lending products as an impediment to homeownership. New mortgage products require higher credit scores and larger amounts of down payment. This combination is moving clients out of the homeownership market. Additionally, recent changes in HUD programs that decrease up front mortgage insurance costs and increase the monthly costs for mortgage insurance are also eliminating clients from eligibility for home loans. Finally, mortgage modifications are not happening fast enough to save homes. Lenders are taking so long to move through the required steps that the mortgage becomes unsalvageable. Discrimination in Financing Examine the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information in your area. Is there evidence of higher denial rates for minorities and low- income individuals: Appendix E contains information from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council on the Charlotte MSA, in which Cabarrus County lies. The attached information in Appendix E tied many of the denial rates to debt to income ratios, employment history, credit history and insufficient cash. The overall denial rates for conventional loans ( Table 4 -2 in Appendix E) are as follows: American Indian 18.9 %, Asian 16.4 %, Black 22.8 %, Hispanic 17.2% and Caucasian 11.9 %. Of the loan denials for Blacks on government backed loans such as FHA, 25.3% were denied based on their credit history, similarly, 27.8% of Caucasians and 23% Hispanic were denied for the same reason ( See Table 8 -1 in Appendix E). On government backed loans, the Debt to Income ratio was the cause for denial for 25.3% of Blacks and for Caucasians the rate was 24.4% (Table 8 -1 in Appendix E). It appears that denial rates are very similar in most cases. For low income persons, credit history and debt to income ratio were the only appreciable differences in reasons for denial. On government backed loans, the less than 50% of median had 31.4% of the denials for debt to income versus only 14.7% for the more than 120% of median (See Table 8 -1 in Appendix E). Employment history accounted for 6% of the denials for less than 50% of the median income, whereas 6.3% of the 120% of medians were denied for the same reason in government backed loans (See Table 8 -1 in Appendix E). Overall, it appears that most of the statistics are very similar. Appendix E contains the full charts for information on the disposition of conventional and government 271Page Analysis of Impediments March 2011 Attachment number 1 F -1 Page 77