Historically[0] that was a profit center for contract lenders which people living in redlined neighborhoods (i.e. mostly black Americans) had to resort to if th

Historically[0] that was a profit center for contract lenders which people living in redlined neighborhoods (i.e. mostly black Americans) had to resort to if they wanted to buy a house before the reforms of the 1960's. These people would lend money for a house with very predatory terms. It was apparently common for a borrower to have their house foreclosed on for minor missed payments and the contract lender would simply repossess the house so they would have the house and all the payments they collected. The borrowers couldn't easily refinance since the neighborhood was redlined and there were few to no regulations on the contract provisions so a mostly paid off house could still be repossessed with no reimbursement. This was one of the major ways the black middle class was hollowed out since homeownership was one of the major sources of middle class wealth gain. [0] https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/contract-selling-redlining-housing-discrimination/Content?oid=25705647 https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/contract-selling-redli...