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.
You would be VERY surprised - bigots are usually very willing to shoot themselves in the foot. I mentioned going to my city’s Pride parade once to a prospective landlord I was touring an apartment with, and they all but told me outright “I won’t rent to you”. I’ve also seen this happen with friends buying cars - a buddy asked me to go kick tires with him when he was looking for a new car, and since I’m white and he isn’t, the salesman that came out to talk with us IMMEDIATELY assumed I was the one buying the car.
I also used to work commission-based sales myself as a cellphone salesperson. One common complaint I had from a lot of my Black and Hispanic clientele was that the anchor store sales staff (who were closer to them and better-stocked) would almost always assume they wanted to see the worst, shittiest phones (this was back right as the iPhone 5 was coming out), even if they had walked in ready to drop several thousand dollars on new Apple phones (which got us a commission of about $100 per device). These people would drive 20-30 minutes past THAT store to come to my store (the next closest) just so they didn’t have to deal with those salespeople.