The home loan freeze continues to thaw, though tens of thousands of local residents are too far underwater to take advantage.
Banks denied about 22 percent of home loan refinancing applications last year, new federal data show. That's slightly lower than the denial rate from the previous year and way better than the nearly 50 percent denial rate during 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
All told, about 40,500 local residents were able to take advantage of historically-low interest rates and refinance last year, roughly similar to the number of refinancings during 2007 but not even half the number of refinancings the region saw during 2005, the peak of the housing boom.
Blacks and Latinos last year were once again denied home loan refinancings more often than whites and Asians. About 36 percent of black applicants and 30 percent of Latino applicants saw their loans denied, compared to 21 percent of whites and 22 percent of Asians.
Not captured in the new figures are the tens of thousands of local residents who would like to refinance but don't even bother applying because their homes are worth so much less than the outstanding balance of their loans.
2010 home loan refinancing denial rates in the Sacramento region, by bank
Source: Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council
Notes: Excludes loan applications that were withdrawn before a bank decided whether to approve or deny; also excludes a small number of loan applications that were approved but not accepted by the borrower. Only includes loans for owner-occupied homes, not investment properties.
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