Racial Steering Research Articles

Racial Steering in U.S. Housing Markets: When, Where, and to Whom Does It Occur?

Housing discrimination has long been thought to contribute to the persistence of racial segregation, yet evidence indicates that many forms of discrimination have waned over time. We argue that past work has not fully considered the role of racial steering in maintaining segregation. To explore patterns of steering, we leverage experimental audit data from the 2012 Housing Discrimination Study to examine how neighborhoods of homes shown by real estate agents to auditors change dynamically throughout the search process and to assess the conditions under which steering is most likely. As with past research, we find no evidence of steering in Asian-White or Hispanic-White audits. However, we find consistent evidence that agents steer Black homeseekers away from White neighborhoods and toward Black ones, particularly female homeseekers and those with children. We also find that agents steer relatively early in the search process and especially when searches begin in racially-homogeneous neighborhoods.

In West Philadelphia Born and Raised or Moving to Bel-Air? Racial Steering As a Consequence of Using Race Data on Real Estate Websites

In West Philadelphia Born and Raised or Moving to Bel-Air? Racial Steering As a Consequence of Using Race Data on Real Estate Websites

Urban Community Credit Scores: Exploring the Use of Urban Geography and Geographical Information Systems

While social security numbers are issued by the Social Security Administration (SSA) for the purpose of collecting revenue and distributing benefits and to manage data for that purpose, the three major credit bureaus and other agencies use these numbers to identify individuals for other purposes. The credit reporting agencies or bureaus also create credit profiles and credit scores to analyze risk factors for employers, banks, property managers, and many other lenders concerning people seeking credit. However, credit bureau agencies also compile data on target groups and compare the controlled data to compose individual credit scores, which is attached to individual social security numbers. Additionally, the credit agencies create maps based on the geographical and demographic information of consumers in a given area and use these geographic information systems (GIS) to compare the data to the highest scores in the United States to create a comparative score score. Therefore, the credit bureau data may help create lower credit scores and unequal lending opportunities, higher interest rates, racial steering, segregation, and discrimination against the population in urban communities.

Spatial and Racial Patterning of Real Estate Broker Listings in New York City

It has been well documented that Black homeseekers face discrimination in the housing market in the form of racial steering and other institutional policies and practices that are critical in limiting housing access. Less is known about the mechanisms that operate on the other side of real estate transactions to perpetuate racially segregated neighborhoods. We investigated whether White and Black brokers face segregation in the housing market. That is, to what extent do White and Black brokers differentially market property listings in neighborhoods of varying racial composition? Using real estate listings extracted from the websites of two of the largest New York City real estate brokerages, we examined whether Black and White brokers market properties primarily in Black and White neighborhoods, respectively; and whether, controlling for gender and experience level, Black brokers had a lower average price per square foot than White brokers. Results showed that Black brokers overwhelmingly marketed properties in Black neighborhoods, with fewer listings in White areas. Black brokers also marketed properties with an average price per square foot that was $197 lower than White brokers. Black brokers who worked in offices in Black neighborhoods had the lowest asking price of all brokers. Taken together, Black and White real estate brokers control a bifurcated market in NYC, perpetuating residential segregation and Black-White income and wealth disparities.

The Perfect Pairing: University and Community Service Learning, Housing Discrimination and Research

Service learning is spreading rapidly across the nation. The class I teach. Sociology 4430—”The Community” at my non-traditional southeastern university, regularly partners with the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center (CAFHC) to provide student service learning experiences. In a Fall 2010 class, after training by the executive director that included an introduction to fair housing laws, protected groups and discrimination cases, the class created a questionnaire, interviewed a convenience sample of residents, analyzed the data and provided reports to CAFHC Students learned about respondents’ personal experiences involving discrimination against protected groups (race, ethnicity, religion, sex, disability, and familial), steering, housing segregation, and difficulties in attaining home loans and insurance. Although not randomly selected, the sample still provided a snapshot of the respondents’ knowledge, perceptions, and experiences. The data analyses and student papers were provided to CAFHC for use in reports and proposals. Data suggested that housing segregation and discrimination continue to exist in this small section of the southern U.S. Responses to open-ended questions regarding racial steering and discrimination further provided evidence that perceptions and the reality of discrimination continue to exist. Service learning provided the perfect forum for students to explore the community and learn firsthand about residents’ housing knowledge, continued segregation, discrimination, and other housing related issues.

Neighborhood Patterns of Racial Steering of Subprime Mortgage Lending

For decades, several studies have been done on redlining of minority and low income neighborhoods. But, the recent explosion of subprime lending in these communities may have been accompanied by some sort of redlining in reverse — so-called “steering.” Using data for 2005, I estimate probabilistic models of loan approvals jointly for two non-prime mortgage products for riskier borrowers — subprime and FHA loans. The estimates show that, in five of 22 major metropolitan cities (Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Tampa), applications for subprime loans in minority neighborhoods were more likely to be approved than applications for FHA loans, relative to non-minority (white) neighborhoods — suggesting racial steering of subprime mortgage lending across these neighborhoods. Several of these cities have experienced tremendous increases in subprime lending, and subsequently have had high mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

Cybersegregation: Are Neil Kelly and Greg Baker More Desirable Tenants Than Tyrone Jackson or Jorge Rodriguez? A Research Proposal

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By Words and Deeds: Racial Steering by Real Estate Agents in the U.S. in 2000

Although prohibited by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, studies in the 1980s found that racial steering by real estate agents in the U.S. was still occurring. That legislation was strengthened in 1988, but throughout the 1990s, no study examined whether these tougher strictures helped eliminate steering. In 2000, HUD and the Urban Institute conducted the national Housing Discrimination Study in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas to replicate and extend that earlier work. In this article, we report the results of this latest study, which examined three types of steering and three steering mechanisms, all at three geographic scales. The results indicate that steering of all types is occurring when Black and White homebuyers are involved. In at least 12 to 15% of the cases, agents provided gratuitous commentary that gave more information to White homebuyers and encouraged them to choose homes in areas with more White and fewer poor households. Steering is less prevalent when Hispanic and White buyers are involved. We also found no evidence that steering declined over the last decade, despite the toughening of the federal legislation in 1988. We conclude by discussing the implications for interracial wealth differentials and new fair housing enforcement initiatives.

Exclusionary Amenities in Residential Communities

This essay identifies an important mechanism by which segregation arises in new residential developments. The Fair Housing Act and other antidiscrimination laws closely regulate real estate sales, advertising, and racial steering. As a result of these laws and other factors, purchasers of homes often lack accurate information about the likely demographic makeup of a new neighborhood or condominium building. Yet these laws have not eroded the incentives for housing consumers to obtain this data. This essay argues that developers can circumvent fair housing laws by embedding costly, demographically polarizing amenities within a new development and recording covenants mandating that all homeowners pay for those amenities. Its central claim is that developers will select common amenities not only on the basis of which amenities are inherently welfare-maximizing for the residents, but also on the basis of which amenities most effectively deter undesirable residents from purchasing homes in the development. The essay dubs this approach the exclusionary amenities strategy and shows how it causes sorting and focal point mechanisms to act in concert, thereby engendering substantial residential homogeneity. The inability to exclude functions as an inducement to spend. During the 1990s, the United States experienced a boom in the construction of residential developments built around costly golf courses. This occurred at a time when golf participation functioned as a noticeably better proxy for race than income, wealth, or virtually any other characteristic. Curiously, substantial numbers of Americans who purchased homes in mandatory-membership golf communities played no golf. This essay offers circumstantial evidence suggesting that by purchasing homes in these communities, homeowners may simply have been paying a premium for residential racial homogeneity. They essay then identifies a number of other examples where developers, or even municipalities, appear to be pursuing an exclusionary amenities strategy. It also identifies instances in which the use of exclusionary amenities may further neutral, or even laudable, objectives. The essay then notes the possibility of inclusionary amenities, and shows how a few developers, common interest communities, and municipalities have used these amenities to achieve greater residential heterogeneity than would otherwise have been possible. It concludes by evaluating the law's current stance of leaving exclusionary amenities largely unregulated, and examines various strategies for curbing the use of exclusionary amenities to achieve racial homogeneity.

Housing Discrimination in Metropolitan America: Explaining Changes between 1989 and 2000

African Americans and Hispanics traditionally have faced many barriers that limit their access to and choice of housing. During summer and fall 2000, local fair housing organizations conducted 4,600 paired tests across 20 major metropolitan areas nationwide. These surveys directly compared real estate or rental offices' treatment of African Americans and Hispanics to that of whites. The 2000 study replicates a 1989 national paired testing study, providing the most complete information available about the persistence of housing market discrimination against African American and Hispanic home seekers. The study finds that disparate treatment discrimination in rental and owner-occupied housing markets persists, but has declined substantially in magnitude over the last decade. Key exceptions to this general decline are discrimination against Hispanics in access to rental housing, racial steering of African Americans, and less assistance to Hispanics in obtaining financing provided.

Alleged Racial Steering in an Apartment Complex

(2001). Alleged Racial Steering in an Apartment Complex. CHANCE: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 19-22.

Racial Steering in the Romantic Marketplace

Racial Steering in the Romantic Marketplace

Patterns of racial steering in four metropolitan areas

Discrimination against minority homeseekers can take many forms. One important form of housing market discrimination is steering, in which minority homebuyers are shown houses, but in systematically different neighborhoods than those shown or recommended to comparable white homebuyers. Steering is often difficult for individual homeseekers to detect, since minorities are shown houses that meet their specifications and have few opportunities to find out about the houses they are not shown. But if minorities are systematically steered away from predominantly white neighborhoods-and vice versa-this form of discrimination clearly limits housing and neighborhood choice and may play a role in perpetuating patterns of residential segregation. This paper describes and analyzes patterns of racial steering, using data from the Housing Discrimination Study (HDS), a nationwide fair housing audit study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).’ We focus on similarities and differences among four major metropolitan areas-Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta-where sufficient audits were conducted to permit site-specific analysis. Statistical procedures are used to compare the characteristics of neighborhoods where houses were shown or recommended to black and white auditors and to test the hypothesis that black homebuyers are “steered” away from predominantly white neighborhoods, and offered housing opportunities in integrated or black neighborhoods instead. In addition, spatial patterns are illustrated in greater depth using maps for the metropolitan areas of Chicago and Atlanta, and spatial analytic tech-

Racial Steering by Real Estate Agents: Mechanisms and Motives

Data from fair housing audits conducted in Cincinnati (1983-85) and Memphis (1985-87) are analyzed to discern whether and how racial steering occurs. The six real estate firms analyzed here engaged in some sort of steering during at least one-half of the audited transactions, on average. This steering did not limit the number of alternative areas shown to black auditors, nor their geographic concentration. Rarely were black auditors not shown dwellings in predominantly white areas, especially if they requested such. But of all the homes they saw, black auditors were shown significantly smaller fractions in predominantly white areas, and significantly larger fractions in mixed and predominantly black areas. These racial patterns persisted regardless of the geographic definition of area chosen: census block, census tract, school district, or community. In addition, blocks adjacent to the homes shown black auditors had higher percentages of black residents, on average, than those shown to white auditors. White auditors rarely were shown houses in racially mixed areas unless they requested them. Even then, after the requested home was shown the bulk of subsequent showings were located in predominantly white areas. This pattern of showings was buttressed by numerous favorable comments by agents about such predominantly white areas and school districts … comments that were rarely given to black auditors. The evidence was fully consistent with only one hypothesis about why real estate agents steer. They steer so as to perpetuate two segregated housing markets buffered by a zone of racially transitional neighborhoods, thereby maximizing housing turnover and agents’ commissions.

Racial Steering in Urban Housing Markets: A Review of the Audit Evidence

A secondary analysis of thirty-six fair housing audits conducted between 1974 and 1987 reveals that racial steering has been a widespread, consequential phenomenon in many urban housing markets during the last decade. It is difficult from extant work to assess precisely its incidence nationally in the home sales sector because sites reporting such data have had atypically active fair housing enforcement efforts. It appears, however, that selective commentary by agents has been practiced as much if not more than differential patterns of home-showings. The consequence of this steering rarely has been to limit the number or concentration of geographic alternatives available to black auditors. Nor have all their options in predominantly white communities typically been precluded. Rather, steering in the sales sector most often has constituted a failure to show white auditors options in areas (and school districts) with nontrivial proportions of minority residents, and a propensity to show black auditors disproportionate numbers of homes in areas currently possessing or expected to possess significant proportions of minority residents. Limited evidence suggests that steering has occurred often in the rental apartment sector, although its consequences have yet to be ascertained in a systematic fashion. Implications of the findings for racial stability in neighborhoods and for fair housing policy are discussed.

The Right to Live in an Integrated Community: Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood

Abstract Abstract The Supreme Court in Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood recently held that the village of Bellwood, Illinois, and homeowners residing in a racially integrated area of the village have standing to challenge racial steering practices under §812 of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. (For an abstract of the opinion see 31 ZD 241.) Because the federal courts have been hesitant to grant standing to challenge various practices, this case signals a new willingness on the part of the Court to hear open housing cases. Just how expansive an interpretation should be made of the decision is, of course, a matter that is subject to debate.