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]
if you do not research the neighborhoods yourself and go blindly to a broker, you will be subject to their prejudices (which does not excuse such behavior). but where does the line start? when a broker mentions a housing project or if they clearly steer you into a specific nieghborhood?
Prejudice? From a white-shoe firm like Corcoran? In Brooklyn Heights no less? Why, I thought that was only the province of us illiterate, Christian red-staters down south.
Interesting to see reflexive enabling and excuse making in some of the earlier posts.
In today’s (10/11/06) Brooklyn Eagle there is an article about how Corcoran invited all its Brooklyn agents to the Pavilion theater for an August presentation and discussion on fair housing practices. “It was so well received,” says Brooklyn SVP Frank Percesepe that the company declared October “Fair Housing Training Month” and instituted mandatory four-hour training company-wide. Oddly, no mention in the Eagle of the NFHA allegations.
Talk about having your head in the sand. Do you honestly think that we will ever ‘fix’ this problem? This is a problem without a solution. We will forever pay for our ugly history (and deservedly so). These witch hunts don’t serve any purpose but to perpetuate the problem.
The only color most real estate agents see is green. Period.
To Anon 1:51, if Corcoran implicitly condones this kind of behavior or practice, it is just as bad as holding courses that teach agents to engage in discriminatory practice! I think this is the real question to be investigated. The higher ups may not have engaged, but doesn’t mean they didn’t turn a blind eye!
i experience this with corcoran this summer… it was very interesting.
When we where looking to buy in Brooklyn we where open for neighborhoods, we look from bad-stuy to Carroll gardens. In cobble hill we met this broker (not Corcoran small local broker) and she was strongly recommending only areas west from Flatbush, as more suitable for us (white couple) so we would have good schools and live with right kind of people. After that we stopped looking in Coble hill and Carroll gardens. We are living in Clinton Hill and we love it. It is probably one of the most integrated neighborhoods and she (broker) helped us to appreciate it.
To follow-up on what anon 2:10 wrote, I am stil amazed at the “head in the sand” approach that so many people take when there are reports of bias. People, pretending that I problem does not exists does not/and will not make it go away. i know that it may be easy to pretend that enlightened neighbors in Brooklyn could never stoop so low as to discriminate, but the fact is it happens and the sooner we admit it, the sooner we can try and fix it.
Are all these anons implying that they don’t think this happens??? Think again.