(Star Telegram) — The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department said it is investigating the practices of some mortgage lenders to determine whether their home loan policies illegally denied qualified African-American and Latino borrowers access to credit. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition filed 22 complaints with HUD on Dec. 7, alleging that the mortgage originators denied Federal Housing Authority-insured loans to African-Americans and Latinos with credit scores as high as 640. FHA guidelines allow mortgages to borrowers with credit scores above 580 with a down payment of 3.5 percent of the loan amount, and to those with credit scores above 500 if they have a down payment of 10 percent of the loan amount.
