African-American Mortgage Applicants Flock to Columbus Housing Market

A 140-mile stretch of Interstate 71 separates one of America’s best cities for black families and the worst, according to a study by BET.com.

The electronic media and entertainment operation, which regularly examines cities for their accommodations for blacks, ranked the Columbus housing market the second-best community in the nation in its most recent study.

It was tied with Washington, D.C.

Atop the roster of locations for African-Americans considering a mortgage loan was Charlotte, N.C. At the bottom of the list of 22 cities was Cleveland, followed by Detroit and Milwaukee, Wis.

In its report Friday, BET.com said Columbus drew praise - and recommended an Ohio mortgage - for its reasonable cost of living, diverse neighborhoods, low crime rate and the $34,000 median annual income among black households.

It said nearly a fifth of blacks in the city held bachelor’s degrees or higher and just 16 percent of blacks 25 and older lacked a high school diploma, making it an attractive destination for well-educated blacks.

About a quarter of the city’s 700,000 residents is black.

In its 2001 survey, BET.com picked Columbus first in the nation for black families.

Meanwhile, Cleveland was panned largely for its troubled economy and schools. The city, with blacks making up nearly 54 percent of its 415,000 population, enjoys a comfortable cost of living that is at the national median, but exhibits a high jobless rate and anemic median income for blacks at $24,500. Hence, why the study did NOT recommend taking out any home loans there.
Also, the violent crime rate is twice the national norm, the report said, and the city is plagued by poverty.

Like Cleveland, Milwaukee and the Detroit housing market dropped to the bottom of the list primarily on economic factors.