MIAMI (By Binyamin Appelbaum, Miami Herald) August 28, 2005 - Hispanics also struggled to get market-rate home purchase loans last year.

The largest lenders charged Hispanics a high interest rate twice as often as whites, the Observer found.

Disparities were largest in California and the Southwest, and in New England and the Northeast.

Hispanics encounter some of the same barriers as African Americans. Studies show they can face discrimination; on average they are more likely to have financial problems; and they are less knowledgeable about the home buying process.

Community advocates say the largest problem, however, is that traditional lenders have only recently started seeking Hispanic customers.

"There's been a real breakdown in the market," said Janis Bowdler of the National Council of La Raza, a Washington-based advocacy group. "We want prime institutions to start incorporating the needs of the Latino community into their everyday business plans."

Last year, 14 percent of Hispanics who received home purchase loans in communities across America were charged high rates, compared with 6 percent of whites.

The disparity in the Charlotte area was similar, although the number of Latinos buying homes is still small. Fewer than 5 percent of home loans in the Charlotte area went to Latinos last year.

Cultural barriers play a role, experts say.

Many Latinos come from countries where distrust of banks is ingrained. More than a third don't have bank accounts, studies show. About the same share have little or no credit history of repaying past loans.

People without a credit history cannot easily qualify for market-rate loans, but they can still get high-rate loans. As a result, many Hispanics pay more for loans simply because they don't have a relationship with a bank.

Some forgo home ownership. Only 47.4 percent of Latinos owned their home in 2004, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. That trailed the black home ownership rate of 49.7 percent.

La Raza wants lenders to use other means of assessing a borrower's reliability, such as history of paying utility bills.