Two federal laws — the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the much older Civil Rights Act of 1866 — make it illegal for both home sellers and their real estate agents to discriminate during a home sale. But more than 50 years after redlining was outlawed, racial discrimination remains an issue, housing advocates say. A multiyear undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit coalition of housing organizations, found that 87 percent of real estate agents participated in racial steering, opting to show their clients homes only in neighborhoods where most of the neighbors were of their same race. Agents also refused to work with Black buyers and showed Black and Latino buyers fewer homes than white buyers.
Fortunately, it sounds like she would still get the home she wanted for her offer.
It doesn’t make the experience any better, of course.
I feel like a more wise real estate agent shouldn’t have divulged the seller’s reason, but maybe it was a guilty conscience that made them say it, knowing it’d cause an outrage.
I just can’t get myself into the head of the seller, though. I could understand a racist not wanting to rent to someone of a certain race (even though I disagree with that), but I don’t get not wanting to sell to them. The seller gets the bank’s money, so it’s not about money or dealing with the property anymore. I can only imagine irrational malice being the reason.
In my neighborhood (in a Philly suburb) most of the houses are owned and rented out by a small number of white men. So selling to black people would lower the value (in their perspective, anyway) of their other properties and those of their buddies. A guy I work with owns only his own house and is trying to sell it, but is adamant about not selling it to a black person because he’s still friends with his neighbors (who are also racist white people). Racism in general is not about coldly rational economic decisions.