The news is out: [In an unusual, if not unprecedented, move for a major trade organization, the National Association of Realtors has taken full ownership for any and all discriminatory actions taken over the years by the 1.4 million agents and brokers for which it speaks.
Of course, realty pros aren’t the only ones who have been complicit in directing people of color away from white neighborhoods, pushing them into more expensive financing or denying them access to homeownership altogether. Lenders and appraisers have been part of the problem, too — and so have some owners, who refuse to sell to African Americans.
But on the day after he was installed as the 2021 president of NAR — the nation’s largest trade association — Charlie Oppler apologized on behalf of the business for past policies that contributed to segregation and racial inequality in America. In 1968, the group opposed passage of the Fair Housing Act. And at one time, it excluded some members of the profession based on both race and sex.
The discrimination was all part of what NAR now says was a “systematic policy” of residential racial segregation led by the federal government and supported by the banking system and other segments of the real estate business.]
Still going on.
