Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)

Citation: Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)
Jurisdiction: Arlington (municipal)
Source: Official source
Original Source: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/57214/637641171662530000 ↗

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Loans by Sex
Of the 2,740 applications in Arlington where the sex of the primary applicant was reported, the majority of
applicants were male (67%), and the minority were female (33%). (HMDA data is reported by sex and not
gender; no data on gender identity is reported, and it is unclear to what degree sex and gender are conflated.)
Though male applicants almost always outnumbered female applicants, application rates are more evenly
divided across lower-income applicants and less evenly divided across high-income applicants. This dynamic held
true for couples as well as individual loan applicants. Overall, application volume by sex was similar in Arlington
and the comparison region. Denial rates were roughly similar regardless of sex in both Arlington and the
comparison region. (Details on these factors are provided in Appendix C: Expanded HMDA Analysis on page
119.)

Table 10: Application Volume in Arlington by Income and Sex (HMDA, 2013-2017)

SEX OF PRIMARY APPLICANT FEMALE MALE TOTAL

Lowest-Income ($0 - $24,999) 0 0% 1 100% 1
Lower-Income ($25,000 - $74,999) 115 53% 100 47% 215
Moderate-Income ($75,000 - $124,999) 306 40% 459 60% 765
High-Income ($125,000 +) 474 27% 1,285 73% 1,759
Total 895 33% 1,845 67% 2,740

Assessment: Application volume rates by sex show women face continued obstacles to homebuying, upstream of
the loan application process (loan approval rates show no indication of discrimination at that point in the

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Arlington Fair Housing Action Plan

process). This disparity could be due to endogenous factors in the homebuying process (such as discrimination by
real estate agents or mortgage brokers), as well as external discriminatory factors, such as lower pay among
women, that would suppress loan applications.