Denver's minority neighborhoods have been getting the lion's share of both. A computer analysis by The Denver Post found that high-interest, or subprime, home loans and home foreclosures both occur mainly in neighborhoods with large numbers of minority residents.
Similar patterns prevail in the counties surrounding Denver.
The borrowers' income matters less than their race or ethnicity, the Post analysis of 1999 federal home loan data found. That means black and Hispanic families in the Denver area often pay a higher price for a house - potentially hundreds of dollars a month more. In Denver, the Post analysis found, foreclosure sales predominate in the same neighborhoods where many homeowners pay higher interest rates for loans. Since 1998, more than half of Denver's foreclosures have occurred in just one-fifth of its neighborhoods. Nearly all of them had a larger percentage of minority residents than the city as a whole.