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51 City of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 36 88 o AA Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice There were at least 98 sub prime lenders active in the City mortgage market.. While most stab prime lenders are designated as mortgage companies, some sub prime lenders are affiliated with prime lenders and might be listed differently by regulators. These lenders accepted 1,383 applications in 2002, of this total the sixteen largest lenders had more than 65% of the total market. Table 24 shows a list of the thirty -six largest sub prime lenders in the City of Cuyahoga Falls. These sub prime lenders are for all loan types and purposes. Ameriquest Mortgage has the largest market share of 9.9% with Household Finance Corporation close behind with 8.1 %. It should be noted that Household Finance and Beneficial Finance (the third largest sub prime lender with 7.0% of the mortgage market) recently signed a letter of agreement with the Ohio Attorney Generals Office regarding alleged predatory lending practices. The agreement includes over 25 million dollars for past and current customers as well as a change in their lending practices. These two lenders controlled more than 10% of the sub prime market. In fact of the thirty six largest lenders in the sub prime market sixteen lenders controlled more than 65% of that market. Figure 1 compares prime and sub prime lenders in the home mortgage market in the City. Prime lenders had more than twice as many applications as sub prime lenders, 3,955 as opposed to 1,383 originations were higher. When comparing originations prime lenders originated more than 75% of their applications while sub prime lenders werejust under 50% in originations. Denials were close with prime lenders denying 10.7% of their applications and sub prime lenders denying 204%. One of the largest areas of difference were in applications withdrawn by the borrower, prime lenders had 7% of their applications withdrawn, while sub prime lenders had 21 % of their applications withdrawn. While the presence of sub prime lenders is important in assuring that all households have access to lending, it can be a concern when lenders who have no commitment to the community are dominating the market. As long as the market is dominated by out of town and state lenders it will be difficult to encouragethem to be more responsiveto the community's needs. Local lenders participate in the community in many ways, the arts, education and loan products that offer reasonable options. They see that they have a commitment to the community and want to do what they can to help, They benefits are two fold, they get high marks in their Community Reinvestment Act reviews and encourage residents to become customers.