Are advertisements discriminatory when they show a realty firm’s agents and the agents are all white? A local fair housing group thinks so and is moving to stop the practice here and elsewhere.
Some real estate industry officials, though, charge that such a complaint is misguided in that it erroneously suggests white agents are incapable of selling to non-whites. They also argue that the ads do not represent an attempt to illegally steer the home buying decisions of minorities in any way.
The ads in question, which look like pages out of a high school year book and one fair housing advocate characterizes as a “sea of white faces,” are found in newspapers and other publications in just about every city.
Typically, the stacked rows of photos, showing individual agents from the shoulders up, depict either all the agents in a firm or a company’s top sales producers.
John Lukehart, vice president of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, a Chicago fair housing organization which objects to the displays, claims the ads are a violation of the federal fair housing law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex or handicap.
“Not infrequently you see real estate ads presenting 25 agents, all of whom are white,” Lukehart said. “Our contention is that from a marketing standpoint this communicates a message to minority home seekers that they may be less than welcome in this office.”
The scrap over agent depiction ads is the latest in a series of charges leveled against real estate advertisers accusing them of biased practices.
Other questions have been raised over the use of code words in classified home sale ads, such as “adults only” and “executive neighborhood”-which could be interpreted as discriminating against families or lower-income individuals-as well as the use of only white models to portray home buyers in ads promoting a particular subdivision.
Lukehart said he would have the same objections if an all-black realty firm produced an advertising spread showing its agents.
“What that communicates (to a white person) is that these agents are probably working in a black area and that is probably not an area I would be comfortable with.”
The ads, Lukehart said, also have to be viewed against any history of discrimination and segregation. In Chicago, he said, “we have a very intense, with a capital I, history of racial segregation.”
Lukehart said that discussions by his group with some of the largest real estate franchises in the Chicago area have prompted them to adjust their ads either by abandoning the format or picking some other basis for the selection of agent pictures that results in greater diversity.
In those instances where the Leadership Council did not win voluntary changes, the group is now “prepared to challenge the practice” in a manner that could impact real estate markets everywhere, Lukehart said.
The Leadership Council declined to reveal exactly how it will proceed, other than to lay out some options. It may either bring a private lawsuit or lodge a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Justice, Lukehart said.
The objects of a complaint could include the firms paying for the ad, the advertising agency preparing the ad and the newspaper running the ad, he said.
Carol Hug, co-owner of four Re/Max offices in Chicago’s predominantly white southwest suburbs, is one of those who acceded to the Leadership Council’s wishes and stopped running the agent photo spreads last spring, although she said she did so with some reservations.
“I understand totally where the Leadership Council is coming from (as to the) impression the ads give, but it is hard for my agents to see the bigger picture. Rightly or wrongly, our agents feel these ads are helpful in their business . . . yet we cannot afford to open ourselves to potentially dangerous lawsuits.”
Hug replaced the agent photo ads with copy that consists of company statistics, logos and agent names. That approach, though, puts her offices “at a competitive disadvantage because some of our smaller competitors are still using pictures,” she said.
One way around the problem is to hire minority agents whose pictures would also run in the ads but the obvious solution is not a practical one, Hug said. The Re/Max company policy of associating only with established, high-sales volume agents makes it difficult when minority agents selling in the local realty market are rare, she said.
“We would love to integrate our staffs and we have tried to for years,” Hug said. “It is difficult for agents to move markets at any time, but even more so for a minority agent moving into a white marketplace.”
The Chicago dispute and its ramifications have not been lost on realty firms elsewhere.
Last spring, the board of directors of the National Association of Realtors passed a resolution to “seek clarification and assurances from HUD that the pictorial representation of a real estate firm’s sales agents does not express a preference in violation of the fair housing act.”
However, leaders of the association opted to drop pursuing the matter after some informal discussions with HUD and encountering a “non-committal” attitude, said Fred Underwood, NAR’s staff vice president of equal opportunity.
At the moment, the issue is “something we are watching.”
Real estate firms who employ the advertising motif do so not so much to attract new business from home buyers and sellers but “to make their agents feel good,” said Stockton, Calif. real estate broker Art Godi, who is the incoming president of the National Association of Realtors. “It is a very common thing to do.”
Besides recognition, the approach “promotes a successful image of the firm” and “serves as a recruitment tool for agents,” Godi said.
