Lending Capital

This chapter describes how White mortgage bankers relied on segregated interindustry networking with real estate agents to shore up their lending portfolios. In doing so, they helped sustain racially segregated buyer–agent–banker networks and loan opportunities. The chapter also demonstrates how White real estate agents undertook such networking and, in some cases, used the racist market rubric to interpret mortgage bankers of color, whom they excluded from their professional circles. In addition, the chapter describes how mortgage bankers depended on the routine of racialized discretion when they interpreted mortgage borrower and property risk. They gave White borrowers and homes in White neighborhoods the benefit of the doubt, assuming they were the least risky and most valuable. By contrast, they cast shadows of doubt on borrowers of color and homes in neighborhoods of color, interpreting these individuals and areas through the racist market rubric. Racialized discretion has consequences for whether and under what conditions mortgage loans are approved.