Challenges Faced by Black Real Estate Agents

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Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. Anyone read The New York Times article from the other day called Selling Houses While Black? We're going to have the writer, Colette Coleman, on. Housing discrimination is nothing new, but we usually talk about it against people looking to buy or rent, but there is another overlooked piece of discrimination in real estate, Black real estate agents face discrimination from other agents as described in this article as well as people looking to buy and sell their homes, the customers, real estate agents facing discrimination from customers.

This article in the Times highlighted many of the ways that Black real estate agents have to navigate racial discrimination while they're just doing their jobs. Again, it's called Selling Houses While Black. One of the stats, Black agents make up only about 6% of real estate agents in America, even though 14% of Americans overall are Black. Additionally, white real estate agents reportedly make nearly three times as much money as their Black counterparts doing the same job. Colette Coleman is a writer focused on race and equity, and we're going to talk about her article now. Colette, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Colette Coleman: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we definitely want your stories here. If any real estate agents of color, Black in particular, but other real estate agents of color as well happen to be listening right now, talk about selling homes while Black. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Did something, in particular, inspire you to report this story? This is obviously a long-term ongoing thing, but was there a trigger for this?

Colette Coleman: There were actually a few triggers. One was I myself have been a salesperson for years, I have never sold real estate, but I sold education technology. You sell to school districts, and the district administrators superintendents are about 90% white, and 75% male, and I'm a woman of color, so I faced my own discrimination in the sales process.

Also, there was a great article in The New Yorker, maybe a few or several months ago about the plight of door-to-door salespeople. It was really interesting, especially as a salesperson, I loved it, it was great, but it felt like there was an elephant in the room with that article in that they never brought up. What about a Black door-to-door salesperson? That experience would just be so much harder in many parts of the country and so different.

I had those things on my mind, and then one evening, I live in a rural part of New York, I had an unexpected visitor driving up my driveway at dusk, it's dark out, I'm getting nervous, who is this person approaching my door. It turns out, it was a real estate agent, a white real estate agent. I was just shocked that he felt comfortable approaching somebody's door. He didn't know in my area most homes have firearms, they have scary dogs that do bite.

After having this agent come visit my door, door knocking as they call the practice to try to drum up some business, I thought what if that had been a Black man? What do Black real estate agent feel comfortable doing that practice? Assuming the answer is for a lot of Black agents, they probably don't. How does that impact their professional prospects if they're limited in the marketing tactics that they can use?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Your article, of course, has some horrifying anecdotes like having police cars arrive, while showing a house to potential buyers, even somebody being handcuffed. Also, potential buyers walking out of a home after seeing the agent was Black. Do you want to pick any one individual anecdote that really stands out to you? Or, is there one that you wake up thinking about at night even after the article was published?

Colette Coleman: Like you said, there were so many and I could only include 1% of them. It was really disturbing research to do. It was just very upsetting to hear similar anecdotes over and over the trend. Again, they all stick out but one in particular that's early on in the article is about the president of NAREB, which is an organization, National Association of Real Estate Brokers, but it includes real estate professionals, not just brokers, and it was founded In 1947 when Black Americans weren't allowed to join the main real estate organization, the National Association of Realtors. It's this great organization, long history.

The President, Lydia Pope, she's also a broker and agent, she has her own experiences. In 2018, she was doing work at a condo, I believe it was a condo or maybe a home, she was listing, and all of a sudden the police start surrounding the home. She's thinking, "What's going on? Why are there police everywhere?" She comes outside, and they let her know, "Well, we have a report of a break at this home that you're inside of right now." She pulled out her laptop, she showed her phone, her license, her ID, everything.

She said there was a man standing across the street, and it was a predominantly white area, and he was a white man sitting across the street. He was just looking at her like a look like, "I got you." He really thought he had caught her. That's disturbing especially, it shouldn't happen to anybody, it shouldn't happen to any Black person, but somebody also her stature, she's the president of a major organization, and she's not immune from experiences like that. The indignity of it really stuck with me too of having to explain yourself when you're just trying to do your job.

The other thing that stuck with me about it was that she didn't go back, she gave the listing back. She's losing out on money. With the stats you reference of Black agents making less, that could be part of why. There was another anecdote in the story from a real estate professional, Chastin J. Miles, who also decided I'm not returning to this $3 million home because I was treated so poorly, that it's just not worth that emotional toll, so he's losing out on money. There are a lot of reasons I think that Black agents are making less, but I think that is part of it, of just not wanting to stick with it and endure some of these atrocities.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. The atrocities don't only come from neighbors and from law enforcement and from official industry groups, but as you're describing in the piece, there's a huge financial penalty that comes along with the racism that affects Black real estate agents. There was a survey from an industry association that showed that there's a huge disparity in sales volume, and therefore, obviously, how much money is earned between Black and white agents. That goes to the attitudes of the buyers, right?

Colette Coleman: Yes. For the most part, what I found is that people do want to work with people who look like them. Of course, there are exceptions, and of course, in areas like New York City or the surrounding areas of New Jersey, it's not as big of a problem as it is talking to agents in Arizona, or North Carolina, in the south in Texas, but it's still as a trend.

Thinking about that, if some Black agents are somewhat limited to working with Black sellers and buyers, there are fewer Black Americans already, but then there are also fewer Black homebuyers because of all of the issues with home buying and the history of home buying and the racism around that in the country, and Black homes are priced lower than those of white homeowners. There are just all of the structural racism that's stacked against the Black agents, where if they're predominantly working with Black clients, they will end up making less.

Brian Lehrer: Again, listeners, we invite you to call in if you are a Black real estate agent, about being a Black real estate agent. Anything about that, that you want to say, as we're talking to Colette Coleman who wrote The New York Times article published the other day called Selling Houses While Black, or you can also talk about being a homebuyer or a prospective renter while Black, we can expand it to that. On the phones; 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet a question or comment @BrianLehrer, but the particular angle here is on the real estate agents. Louis who I think has a story of being a buyer, you're on WNYC. Hi, Louis.

Louis: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. This hits close to home. During the pandemic, I had worked for years to save up some money to buy a property. As soon as COVID hit, it was a perfect opportunity to buy a property. I started doing my due diligence, I got approved by a bank. I had about $50,000 for a down payment. I tried looking in Jersey, Connecticut, the surrounding areas, somewhere within driving distance of the city. Well, firstly, I was surprised that all of the agents that I was looking for the property within my price range were white. I started contacting them and I had a hard time getting ahold of agents in the beginning.

As soon as I got a couple of agents, I would send my applications and they would always come back 90% of the time with, "Oh, it's a beating war, there's somebody else looking at this property." I had a really hard time, and this is prior to the government giving out this zero interest loans for housing. I knew I had a good opportunity.

It wasn't until I found a Black agent that I was really able to get some momentum going and looking at all the properties. The other problem was that he would only show me houses in predominantly Black or brown neighborhood. Whenever he would try to get in touch with seller's agent, he always also had a hard time getting responses back.

It took me a long time to actually get property, and of course I didn't buy it in an area where I would like, I had to settle for a property in Albany and I just hold it now as an investment but I just really had-- there's this unspoken and it's really hard to prove that it was racism because we couldn't find any other explanation. In my case when I tried to approach agents with my Hispanic name, that's when I would have a hard time but whenever I send my wife's name because she's Asian, we would always get a reply right back. I guess that's my--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you're like a one couple-controlled experiment. Collette, what are you thinking as you listen to Louis? I bet you've heard stories like that before.

Colette Coleman: Yes, unfortunately, it fits into everything that I've heard. One thing, there was a mention of an agent [unintelligible 00:12:15] who was asked by some white clients who did let her list their home, but they said, "Oh, can you not put up your picture on the lawn sign? We don't want our neighbors to know that there's a Black agent."

I was like, "Well, why would that really matter to the neighbors what race the agent is who's listing your home?" Her speculation was the neighbors would then fear a Black agent would bring a Black client, and then a Black family might move in and be their neighbors, which maybe that's because of racism, they don't want that or maybe they're worried their home price will then go down with Black owners.

Yes, unfortunately, I can see that being the case, Louis's story. Then I also heard a lot of people saying the Black agents, Black clients, would be asked like, can you show proof of funds before we let you see our listing or you need to stop by and drop off your ID. All of these things that are really unheard of. One agent who was a new agent at the time, didn't even know it was a strange thing.

Then she told a mentor who was like, "What are you talking about? What is going on at that?" Again, the other point that Louis made that's really great is it's so hard to prove that it's racism and we can't general-- that is great that he had his wife as the comparison, but usually, you can't do a randomized controlled study of, to figure out the way you can with a science experiment. A lot of times it's just the trend when you keep hearing it over and over and it's only happening to a certain group. It just seems like the logical conclusion that it is racism.

Brian Lehrer: Mark in East Windsor, you're on WNYC. Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to make a comment. I know you were asking for African American lease real estate agents. I happen to be a leasing agent. I worked as a leasing agent in the apartment rental industry. I've worked with for over 10 years. I wanted to make the comment that a lot of times I feel it's about the perception of a prospects who are coming into the office as an African American, physically, I'm a very tall African American. I'm 6 foot, 7, and some people can find my height imposing.

I feel that sometimes when people walk into the office and they've heard my voice or they've communicated with me via email, because a lot of your pre-sales, your screening is done on social media or it's done electronically before they physically see you. They can be surprised to see me sitting behind the desk or sitting in the office.

I can also tell you that you can sometimes see in facial expression or body language, sometimes prospects who might be white feeling a little uncomfortable because they're not familiar with dealing with an African American in a position in terms of things like sharing confidential bank data, credit screenings, background screenings but I did want to share that sometimes it works the other way, Brian. I can tell you that many instances I've had Asian, South Asian, or Hispanic prospects walk in and see me.

I can tell you that sometimes they feel a sense of relief for lack of a better word. A number of Asian, I've worked in Hamilton and East Windsor and there's many people from Pakistan, from India who are apartment prospects and have shared with me experiences of not being treated very nicely. Sometimes, not all, by some white leasing professionals, for example, who won't show them I'm apartment or instead of taking the keys and taking them on a tour as you're supposed to do, handing them the keys and suggesting that they go see the apartment themselves. It can work both ways. Sometimes people are comforted by my presence.

Brian Lehrer: Such a great story, both parts of your story. Mark, thank you very much. Colette, he makes a great second point there, right? That we hadn't even touched on yet, which is that for some potential buyers or renters of color, it's probably a relief to see a Black or other person of color real estate agent or leasing agent when you run into one.

Colette Coleman: Yes, definitely. It does go to that point though that a lot of people choose to work with agents who look like them. The Black agents have their Black clients and a lot of the Black agents I spoke to saw their work as an act of service and a way for them to really lift up the Black community and help it to build generational wealth through real estate.

Brian Lehrer: Does the law cover discrimination against real estate agents or leasing agents for that matter? We had an occasion to mention the Fair Housing Act of 1968 earlier in the week when we were talking about civil rights laws on Martin Luther King Day. That was the last, I would say of the major Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s passed in '68, the same year that Dr. King was assassinated. It covers at least on paper people who are looking to live in places. Does it say anything about people who work in the industry?

Colette Coleman: There are definitely laws in place and I think one agent I spoke to who had described a situation that felt like, again, it's so hard to prove discrimination or racism at times, so that's one of your hurdles you'd have to get over but then secondarily what the agent was saying when I asked can you do something legally about this? He said that there have to be damages.

If there aren't financial damages to sue for, then you don't really have a case. I spoke with somebody at the National Association of Realtors who said that this specific example I'm speaking of, he said, "Oh no, that person, there are things they can do to have repercussions for the person discriminating against them." I think there may be laws there, but they might be so intricate that people don't really know them and they don't know their rights, they don't know what they can do or maybe when they do know what they can do, it just feels still like, I don't have time for it, or I don't want to have to prove something where I'm going to be doubted.

Even this article, there are a lot of people who are doubting, like that's in the past or the woman in the article who described taking a course, a required course on Fair Housing law where some of the agents were just making jokes and just belittling it and saying like, "Ah, this doesn't really happen anymore." I think you would be putting yourself in a position where you have to go up against it. If you're somebody who has been experiencing discrimination your whole life, so you're just like, "This is what it is, this is America." Maybe it's not, you don't take the time to really do it because it just feels like you're resigned to this being the way it is.

Brian Lehrer: It's one of the biggest divides in America, I think, along racial lines, white people think discrimination ended with the 1964 Civil Rights Act or a few other things and are much quicker obviously, than people of color to say no, that's in the past. Is that a core part of your experience researching this?

Colette Coleman: Yes, and I think also in the reaction to it where a lot of people feel like, what are you saying? There are no successful Black real estate agents or Black people can't be successful real estate agents. That's ridiculous. That is ridiculous in the sense that there are many, many successful real estate agents. I would encourage Black people consider--

Brian Lehrer: It's not what your article says.

Colette Coleman: True, yes. Some people do interpret it that way who feel that racism is something in the past, and they just don't really want to hear about this. Again, if I can't do my randomized control study, then I can't really 100% prove it.

Brian Lehrer: You just have to recruit Louis and his wife to go around from place to place and prove it for you. Georgia in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, George.

George: I had a similar incident. I'm African American and the real estate sales agent was also African American and looking at an apartment at 99th Street in Manhattan, Westside. This is a while ago, not recently. This is about maybe 10 years ago. The cops were called to our surprise that after she identified who she was, with her ID, et cetera, that everything was fine. It's just a humiliation that ensued from that.

The other thing I want just mentioned, and you know about it, Brian, Henry Louis Gates, the cops recorded him entering his own house many years ago. This is not an anomaly. This has been going on for quite-- I don't know why this is such a big surprise because these things happen and continue to happen. My own sister had that happened to her as recently as a year ago, during the COVID time.

That wasn't the reason behind it because she sent her girlfriend, a friend of hers, who was white to the same place and she was able to see the unit that my sister couldn't see. That's the only way to prove these things. You have to send a white checker. If that white checker is able to corroborate what the Black person experienced, then there is evidence and is able to testify in court, then that would be the evidence to support your experience.

Brian Lehrer: George, thank you. Thank you very much for your call. Colette, is there a policy response to improve this situation? Would any new law in particular or new enforcement of any existing laws matter here or is this mostly a matter of raising people's awareness of the problem when it comes to Black real estate agents as your New York Times article does?

Colette Coleman: I don't think there's necessarily a policy answer. I spoke to Brian Greene at the National Association of Realtors, and he said they already have started implementing their ACT initiatives so A, accountability, C, changing the culture and T, training. Changing the culture is huge. Then the training is limited to where we are as a culture in terms of our anti-Black racism. I do think there are some things that could help definitely more accountability, but also representation.

If you think about just even a lot of the real estate TV shows, a lot of times the cast is 100% or nearly 100% white. If you look at the list of say, the top 100 real estate agents in whatever area, 95 of the people on the list are not Black. If we had more representation, so people knew like, "Oh, no, it's a very common thing for Black people to be agents," then maybe people when they saw them, opening up the lockbox of the house would think like, "Oh, that could just be a real estate agent," and that's where their mind would go.

I think representation could help and that would also help to attract more Black people into the field. Then I think if we can get more Black homeowners, that would also help because then that would also lead to more Black agents, because a lot of the agents I spoke to said, I didn't even know about this career until I bought my first home at 45, or whatever age, but it wasn't something that really was presented to them as a career option.

A lot of them also mentioned it's such a great career option because you don't have to have a college degree. If you have, the right outgoing, organized personality, you can make a lot of money. There's no cap to your income. You're poised to get into real estate investing. There are just a lot of great things about the career so it is something that would be great for more people to know about and Black people to get into.

Brian Lehrer: One of the sources in your article brought up the fact that some older clients grew up during segregation. There was a story of a particular guy who wasn't convinced that "This 60-year-old white man completely trusts me with selling his home when he lived in a time when I couldn't even buy one." A quote from the Black real estate agent. How much do you think just changing generational attitudes about race will ameliorate some of the racism from the client side?

Colette Coleman: I think that's really at the core of everything we're talking about where if we could improve, have less racism in the country overall, then this would be a very different conversation. I did hear, it might have been from that agent or someone else, I can't remember right now, but where they said, I feel like there is a change happening with younger people where they're less concerned about race than their grandparents might be. The more we can educate the young people, then when they go to Thanksgiving with their grandparents, they can school their grandparents.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Julian in Northfield, New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julian.

Julian: Hi, Brian. It's Northvale, New Jersey. [unintelligible 00:25:56]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, sorry about that.

Julian: We recently sold our house and we used the minority status of a prospective buyer as a positive that is they were competing bids. I throw that out there so like-minded sellers can do that and make a small dent in the inherent inequality in housing.

Brian Lehrer: Did you get any pushback from your neighbors?

Julian: No. The house was in Nyack. It's somewhat diverse. No, we did not have any issue and we did the same thing on our previous house, which wasn't a more white neighborhood. I think there there was a little kickback I sensed from the neighbors, but we did something small that we could do.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for sharing your story, Julian. As we wrap up, Colette, you referred before to maybe some negative response to your article in The Times selling houses while Black in addition, I presume, to positive response. You haven't been published in The Times much I think you're a freelancer, not a time staffer, right?

Colette Coleman: Correct, yes.

Brian Lehrer: What was the experience like for you?

Colette Coleman: It was a great experience. Like I said, some of the interview process, the research process was tough just because you're hearing these stories over and over and feeling your own rage and sadness about it. In the end, I'm really excited about this piece. I feel like hopefully, it will have an impact and I've heard from some of the people who are included they are really grateful to have the piece out there because without it their stories might not have been told. The caller who said I'm surprised people are surprised. It's so obvious, but unfortunately, it's not really obvious to most people.

Brian Lehrer: Colette Coleman is a writer focused on race and equity. Her article, Selling Houses While Black, was published in the New York Times last week. Thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing it with us.

Colette Coleman: Thanks for having me.

 

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