Keywords

Housing, Segregation, Race, Housing Policy

Abstract

Subprime mortgage lending in the USA rose alongside home prices and lasted about 15 years, ending abruptly in late 2007, setting off a national foreclosure crisis. Between 2007 and 2012 there were 9 to 12 million foreclosures filings and 4 to 5 million completed foreclosures. The ensuing foreclosure crisis stemmed more from falling home prices but its unequal distribution across society by race and space was also the product of legacies of exclusion and a shared consensus on the expansion of mortgage credit and home ownership. Modest federal interventions to buffer communities and homeowners from the crisis likely reinforced the unequal impact.

Original Publication Citation

Rugh, Jacob S. 2019. "Subprime Lending/Foreclosure Crisis" The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118568446