Dear White REALTORS: We have a racism problem
This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
Dear fellow White REALTORS®, we have a racism problem.
I don’t mean THOSE White REALTORS®. I don’t mean Trump-voting White REALTORS®. I mean me. I mean you.
Yesterday Newsday released a damning documentary and news report that showed racial steering is alive and well on Long Island. They were meticulous, this was the product of three years of expensive investigative reporting. The reporters visited real estate agents across Long Island to see if they would be treated the same. Spoiler alert: they were not. Not even close. 19% of the time agents discriminated against asian buyers, 39% of the time against hispanic buyers, and 49% of the time against black buyers.
Over and over we see white agents giving different answers to clients whose only difference is race. When confronted with the evidence of the discrimination the REALTORS® and companies refused to comment. Are you more prepared than they were to respond to evidence of discrimination in your real estate practice? Is your company prepared to respond?
The results should be a wake up call to white real estate agents everywhere. Because we all know, if this process were to be repeated in our own communities, the result would likely be the same. Why? Because the real estate industry itself is a racist system.
🗣️ Let me repeat that, the real estate industry itself is a racist system.
Wait, how can you say the real estate industry is racist? I'm a good person, people in my office are nice. I know a black real estate agent.
I know, white agents, my blood pressure went up just writing that. It's awful to realize that the industry I have worked in for 15 years is racist, which makes me complicit in racism. But we know it’s true. How do we know that real estate is a racist industry? Is it because white real estate agents are mean or bad people? No. Most white real estate agents are pretty great people.
This isn't about being kind to all people or having a black friend or family member. This is about making our living from an industry that disproportionately benefits White REALTORS® and white homeowners. We know it’s a racist industry because it produces a racist result. Nice REALTORS® can be racists. Nice REALTORS® are tolerating racist behavior and continuing a racist result in American Housing. This isn't my opinion. This is a fact.
More facts: 87% of real estate agents are white. 98% of the land in the United States is owned by white people. While homeownership rates by race are easy to come by, (and white homeownership rates are by far the highest) a breakdown of the percentage of homes and properties owned by race is not. I have a call into the Research Librarian at the National Association of REALTORS® HQ in Chicago and will update this article once they respond with that data.
Just because white homeowners and White REALTORS® are more successful doesn't mean real estate is racist, does it?
This question is the one white REALTORS® need to get very real about. The pervasive belief within our industry is that Real Estate as a career is fully a meritocracy and that homeownership is a meritocracy. This belief is convenient for me and other White REALTORS®. Believing this lie allows us to pretend that it is ok that most REALTORS® are white, most REALTORS® that own companies are white, and most leaders in the real estate industry are white because white people just work harder.
While it's true that real estate is a tough industry for everyone- it is even TOUGHER for REALTORS® who do not have whiteness on their side. They are facing overt and covert racism at every turn- from their clients, from their fellow agents, from their association leadership, and even from their own managing brokers and company owners. That is a tremendous disadvantage in an already difficult career.
🗣️ Let me say that again. If you believe that most REALTORS® are white and most homeowners are white because white folks just work harder, that means you are ignorant of the reality of racism in the US and in the real estate industry and need to educate yourself.
Dear white REALTOR®, thanks for reading this far. It sucks and feels gross to realize that the business we love and work so hard in is actively harming people. I came very slowly to this realization in my own business and my own inner work around racism and white supremacy. The feeling I had was, "Well what am I supposed to do about it? It's a racist system. I can't fix the whole racist country, or the whole racist real estate industry, the whole racist NAR, or even my whole racist office! I'm just one White REALTOR®!"
This is where I think a lot of well meaning woke-aspiring White REALTORS® get stuck. I got stuck there for a while. But when I started asking black agents and black folks in my life about what specifically I could do, the answers were pretty consistent and clear. So I'm passing them on to you:
I need to educate myself: Most of us white REALTORS® are not aware of the history of our industry's involvement in racial oppression in the United States. I got training in redlining and steering like everyone else- but I was shocked to learn that it was an actual FHA underwriting guideline that neighborhoods with more than 15% black people in their census tract could not receive FHA financing before 1968. I was also shocked to learn that one of the biggest lobbying forces against the end of this kind of systemic racism was my own REALTOR® Association. In Tacoma my association (like most around the country) aggressively fought against the Fair Housing Act of 1968. While NAR made a written apology for this decades later- we've made no reparations as an industry for the billions of dollars in lost equity generations of Black Homeowners have lost and will lose based on our actions.
I needed to recognize my unearned privileges: As a white person I have more access to power and money because of a history of systemic racism in the US. God it feels awful to say that, but it's true. White Privilege doesn't mean I'm #blessed, my White Privilege is the result of money and influence coming to me at the expense of black and brown people. My first few years in real estate were easier because of my white family members and white sphere of influence having access to homes and home equity they gained before Fair Housing was passed in 1968. As a white lady, implicit bias works in my favor when I meet clients. Most of the agents in my office look like me. Most of the sellers who want to list houses look like me. This is not a small thing. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Give up unearned power and money: This one is tough. I worked hard to become a REALTOR® and stay one for 15 years through one of the worst housing crashes in our country's history. I worked damned hard. But if even a portion of my success is owed to whiteness and not to my work- I need to find ways to leverage that success to level the playing field for REALTORS® of color and Black REALTORS® especially. Right now I'm thinking that means as I business plan a portion of my income needs to be directly supporting REALTORS® of color and Black REALTORS® in particular. I need to be lobbying for and finding methods of funding reduced splits and caps for REALTORS® of color and Black REALTORS® in particular in my company. What am I missing? What else does giving up power and privilege mean as a White REALTOR®?
My own business
After 15 years as a REALTOR® my business model no longer involves working directly with clients, but when it did the majority of my clients were white (even though Tacoma is only half white). Now my business model involves matchmaking clients to other REALTORS®- it is even more essential that I be aware of how my implicit bias as a white person impacts who I match clients to.
I have come to realize that when there are so few people of color in the industry and even fewer black REALTORS® perpetuating the system of racism we swim in is inevitable unless I am conscious and intentional about who I refer clients to, who I mentor, and who I befriend.
White REALTORS®, while the blowback and consequences of the overt and illegal racism of the REALTORS® in the Newsday documentary are theirs- the burden of profiting off of a real estate system that is discriminatory and oppressive against people of color and black people in particular is yours and mine. Let's start working on ourselves and owning our part.
Suggested resources for White REALTORS® wanting to learn more and do better:
Videos:
How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created- Race: The Power of an Illusion by PBS
The Disturbing History of the Suburbs by Adam Explains Everything
Reading:
The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
News:
How Racism Kept Black Tacomans from buying Houses for Decades by Kate Martin
Black and White Homeownership Rate Gap Has Widened Since 1900 by Skylar Olsen
