blackdragon8577 t1_j6irp77 wrote
Reply to comment by Charlesinrichmond in Report: The State of Housing in the Richmond Region 2023 by opienandm
Ok, genuinely curious here. If a homeowner has two offers. One for $150,000 and one for $200,000.
The lower offer sends one of these letters revealing that they are white, have kids, and go to a local evangelical church.
The higher offer does not send anything additional. Just the monetary offer.
If the homeowner accepts the lesser offer because they know that the lower offer is from a white person would that not be illegal?
And if it is not, then what has to happen in order for it to be illegal?
Does the homeowner also need to know that the higher offer is from a person of color and decide to not sell to them based on that?
Or is it that the realty agent is the one that would be held at fault for the homeowner being racist?
IDK, I am super confused based on your reply.
Charlesinrichmond t1_j6iwi1r wrote
no, wouldn't be illegal. Probably can't be made illegal, because of free speech. Any more than we could make say being a socialist illegal.
Now what can be done is nibbling around the edges - ie disallowing agents to work with them sort of thing.
Basically, govt can regulate commerce, but not viewpoint.
It's a lot to put in a reddit thread. But basically being a racist is legal, even though it's stupid. Can't regulate that due to bill of rights. But we can regulate commercial transactions. So the agents can't do the stuff that the individuals can. Does that make sense? We are never going to be perfect, so structurally we err on the side of more freedom
see this:
blackdragon8577 t1_j6jg2xv wrote
So, what you are saying is that a private homeowner can be racist, sexist, or whatever kind of bigot they want. And they can choose to openly discriminate against other people using that bigoted world view when selling their home.
However, as soon as a real estate agent gets involved, that is where the laws start to kick in because that agent is a legal entity in a commercial transaction instead of a regular citizen selling something to a regular citizen.
(I know you aren't condoning the bigotry we are talking about here, but I just like to make sure I understand.)
No law can prevent an individual from being racist and acting according to their racism, as long as they are doing it as a private citizen. The moment they move into a commercial enterprise, operating under a business license, using a realtor, etc. they are then beholden to the law.
Which is why a private seller can do whatever they want.
But let's say that a seller was going through a real estate agent. The seller makes it very clear that they will not sell their home to a black person. The agent brings the offers to the seller and the top bid also has one of these love letters in them revealing that the family buying the home is black.
The seller refuses that offer and instructs the realty agent to accept a lower offer from another family because they refuse to sell to a black person.
In this instance, would someone be in violation of the law? If so, who?
Or does the real estate agent need to be the one actually committing the racial discrimination?
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