Real estate doesn’t have a great track record for equality. It’s so bad that they enacted the Fair Housing Act in 1968 to prohibit race discrimination in sales and rentals of housing. I learned about redlining and steering and honestly didn’t think it really existed anymore. I haven’t heard any agents talking about d
Unfortunately, discrimination still exists in our field. Newsday did a three-year investigation into housing discrimination and found rampant unfair and unequal representation based on race.
In October 2020, the National Association of Realtors came out and made the point how the “love letters” could be “liability letters.” They also said, “Inform your clients that you will not deliver buyer love letters, and advise others that no buyer love letters will be accepted as part of the MLS listing.”
Oregon is taking it a step further and recently had a bill pass the House outlawing the “love letters.” This won’t completely fix the problem, and it’s not perfect, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do it. This is a simple step in the right direction.
This is terrible story of John L Scott, the now deceased founder of the real estate company with the same name, offering Dr. Henry, a black doctor, $100,000 not to buy a $45,000 house as it would hurt home values. “Meanwhile, John L. Scott, a developer and founder of the real estate company that bears his name, offered the Henrys $100,000 to walk away. The house itself cost $45,000.”
“Why are you doing this?” Dr. Henry asked Scott, according to his son Neil’s account. “Do you even know any Negroes? How can you do this when you don’t even know us?’”
“This is business,” Scott replied. “It’s about what’s best for us, and what’s best for you in the long run. And I do know Negroes, Dr. Henry. I like Negroes a great deal. That fellow downstairs shining shoes in the lobby. His name’s Sam. He’s one of my best pals.”
While some may want to say, this happened long ago, I’ll offer a more recent piece of evidence of discrimination in real estate. After receiving what they believed to be a low appraisal, a biracial couple removed all of the signs of “Blackness within the home,” the couple got a second appraisal. That second appraisal was 41% higher than the first. According to a study by the Brookings Institute and Gallup, homes owned by Black Americans are historically under-appraised.
We have a long way to go in fair representation and getting rid of the “love letters” should be an easy step towards leveling the playing field.
