Ethnic minority groups disproportionately impacted by UK housing crash

Sadly mortgage broking, and mortgage lending in general, is not the most diverse world. Whilst it is filled with incredible people who are willing to help anyone they can, it is often difficult for people to reach out and ask for help from someone who, on the face of it, is very different from themselves. It is something that, as an industry, we are working on though; the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries commissioned research into this subject a year or so ago and from that was born the Working In Mortgages project; which aims to help make the mortgage broking and lending spaces far more diverse and inclusive places, great for those wanting to work in the sector, but also for giving greater access to mortgage professionals for those that previously couldn't find a broker they felt would understand them, their needs and their perspective on the world.

Looking at ONS data of household income and assets by ethnicity. Chinese and Indian households have the highest proportion in the most wealthy brackets (earning £2000 per week or more, at 11% and 14% of those groups respectively). These groups also have significantly higher assets than other ethnic groups. This means less households in this group are in 'poorer' brackets. Conversely, Black, Caribbean and Pakistani groups have the opposite distribution. White groups are in the middle. As house prices have remained stagnant but the cost of living has soared, those ethnic groups with income distribution more skewed towards the lower end, have seen a disproportionate number of them " priced out". But then again as the old phrase goes "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics". So who knows...