If you start cheating the system (borrowing for a down payment on a loan, and then lying about it) you jump head first into the red line of VERY HIGH RISK INVESTING.

I wouldn't argue that there may be some de facto discrimination in some areas (i.e. difficulty getting a bank loan or financed within certain areas, aka "redlining"), but there are too many examples of people that knew that RAF @Alexander Felice's claim of "Broke is a choice" is true - many of them right here on this board - for this hypothesis to be true.

@Mary Mitchell if interest rates are lower in nice areas would that violate redlining laws?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

There's a few additional areas you could consider, such as Quincy which has some red-line stops as well some parts of say Roslindale and surrounding areas (though you would be on the lower end).

I suggest you get with the SA Housing Authority, it's one of the best in the country (next to ours, hehe), ask them what areas are in demand, not what area to "red line".I love the area, not real familiar overall, it's a big city, but I might suggest you look around FT.

When I lived in DC the red line into MD was not great at all.

Look up redlining.

The reason I am cynical about acting upon racial data is because it tells little about an area in all ways, correlations could be drawn by x race means high property values or something of that sort but it isn't because of x race it's because of redlining in the 50's among other things.

Maybe a location that isn't too far from red line, good schools that you can afford would be a better option?