Corcoran's Brooklyn Heights Office Accused of Bias
The National Fair Housing Alliance has released a rather damning report of the sales practices of Corcoran’s Brooklyn Heights office. The anti-housing discrimination group set up a sting operation in which more qualified blacks and less qualified whites went to the office posing as home buyers. The report alleges that agents in the office engaged…
The National Fair Housing Alliance has released a rather damning report of the sales practices of Corcoran’s Brooklyn Heights office. The anti-housing discrimination group set up a sting operation in which more qualified blacks and less qualified whites went to the office posing as home buyers. The report alleges that agents in the office engaged in two sorts of unsavory practices: Steering, by which prospective buyers were urged to look at neighborhoods based on the color of their skin, and selective disclosure of information. It’s unclear from the article how widespread this alleged activity was or how conscious or subconcious it was (though the anecdote given is fairly blatant). Have any readers had experiences that would support any of these allegations?
Report Alleges Bias by a Real Estate Giant [NY Times]
I’ve wrtten a couple of comments already, but I feel it’s in everyone’s best interest if brownstoner removes the comment posted at 9:04, as it does nothing but inflame and incite.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we finally have proof, racism is DEAD!! Thank you anon 9:04.
Well, Brenda. I’m sure black folks are sure happy they’ve got such a champion in a good soul like yourself. I hope you don’t sprain your shoulder from patting yourself on the back so much.
When I bought in Clinton Hill years ago, I researched the area and drew my own map based on proximity to the subway stops I wanted to use. I showed my map to brokers and told them not to waste my time showing me listings outside the blocks marked on this map. One insisted on showing me nothing but, and after protesting and making no headway, I quit working with him. Then I found the perfect house for me inside my box (with a different broker), and later discovered that while I’d been working with broker #1, it had actually been his listing. He was now furious I hadn’t bought it through him, despite the fact that he had never shown it to me. When a friend of mine asked broker #1 why he’d never shown me the listing that was precisely what I’d described, the response was “How did I know she could afford it? She’s a single woman!” The financial information I’d provided had been totally ignored in favor of the broker’s bias. Moral: learn the neighborhood(s) first and find the broker later.
I agree with Anon 9:26, who said it all quite well.
Assumtions based on race are made in every area of life, from the record store employee who is surprised I shop in the classical music dept, to the pollster who assumes my political party affiliation, to a cab driver who rolls down the window to tell me “I’m not going to Harlem”, when I catch a cab going uptown. That’s all part of being Black in America. Of course SOME Corcoran agents discriminate. And as someone else said above, so do some buyers and some sellers. For that matter, there are surely some black realtors who don’t want white people buying in the hood. Humanity may be God’s greatest creation, but some people just plain suck. What we, as enlightened people can do, is admit bias and racism exits and is alive and well in this city, country and world, and fight it where ever we find it. We fight it by calling it out, speaking against it, and voting with our ballots, wallets and feet. We don’t excuse it, ignore it, condone it, or practice it.
Sometimes that doesn’t seem like much, but as long as people think it’s ok, or that racism only exists in the paranoid fantasies of minorities, it will never end. That is why these discussions are necessary, and why organizations like NFHA have to exist. I sincerely hope someday soon, they will not be needed, and Martin Luther King’s dream of being judged on one’s character, not the color of one’s skin will be a reality, not just a speech.
fanny may please go away!
Clearly corcoran has a public relations nightmare on its hands. I can’t wait to show up at their open houses this Sunday to see how well I am NOT treated!
I, for one, will never deal with them again when looking at buy listings due to their shadiest of shady practices (my experience was in 2000 and I am still wrapped up in litigation! – yeah I’m bitter).
I did use them for my rental listings because i found it too exhausting to do it myself. There are some real koo-koos out there so I didn’t mind their “selective” practices for my rental purposes.
Shout out to all the corco brokers that are on the up and up!
I have not experienced bias at Corcoran but I have never been discriminated against for being white until I moved to Fort Greene (which I love). TWICE! Once in Cake Man Raven (My husband too) and once at the sidewalk street food tents across the street from the Sol Goldman pool in Red Hook. I can’t explain how awful it felt.
Please people stop defending Corcoran. The allegations are incredibly serious. What decent human being would take out a map and draw a circle around neighborhoods that are supposedly okay to be in. That’s racism. Agents all the time get asked questions that are tricky because we are dealing with racial concerns (sadly!!!) of our customers. It’s our jobs not to fall in to those racist traps. Whether those traps are set up by an organization or whether they are set up by racist individuals we all need to rise above it and not stoop so low as to tell people that neighborhood A has changed so much now that it’s safe and neighborhood B is really not that safe yet. Or whatever. You are real estate agents. And unless you are quoting crime statistics what you had better be doing is steering people to talk to the community affairs officer at the local precinct. Or unless you are quoting nys test scores than if you are talking about what schools are okay and what schools arent you had better be telling people to seek out their own expert advise on a site like insideschools.org. It’s appalling that there is so much stupidity in this industry in general. But get real, just because you are a real estate salesperson/broker doesn’t mean you are an expert on anything about any neighborhood at all and what you are saying could be considered racist. So watch it!