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"Purchasing homes cheaply from nervous white occupants, the panic peddler sold dearly to African Americans who faced painfully limited choices and inflated prices in a discriminatory housing market."
I don't get any of this. If they purchase homes cheaply, then they did not pay inflated prices. I agree that many times RE agents sort of suck but it is a broken record at this point.
It's those pesky AGENTS. The seller sold for too little, the buyer paid too much, everybody got fucked but the RE agents made out like a bandit. In general, most of the agents I know work their collective asses off and really don't make much money.
Now we have an article that explains that RE agents are "forcing" people to buy or sell on their terms and "destabilizing" communities. BALLS! I will live where I want, I will live within my means or beyond them, I am my own man. If I want to rent, I will rent. If I want to own, I will own. If I want to build sweat equity, I will buy a handyman special. You get the picture.
Can we blame all racism on real estate agents now too?
Shaman
2012 Sep 8, 1:53am
Actually it's feelings like yours, civilsid, that are slowly changing cities like Compton, CA from crime infested hell holes to more diverse and stable communities. Prices are low now, but they did rise in the bubble. Not as much as elsewhere, but we saw a lot of current residents taking out second mortgages to use homes as ATMs, then defaulting when the bubble burst. A lot of homes are now finally switching hands. They're getting fixed up and the neighborhood is improving. Someday it may again be a neighborhood where family conscious people choose to live. It's a nice central location anyway ...
investor90
2012 Sep 8, 3:06am
“Blockbusting†refers to the efforts of real-estate agents and real-estate speculators to trigger the turnover of white-owned property and homes to African Americans. Often characterized as “panic peddling,†such practices frequently accompanied the expansion of black areas of residence and the entry of African Americans into neighborhoods previously denied to them.
EXCELLLENT disussion. Blockbusting is alive and well in Central California. A notable example is Lodi, California. The Citi-Data demographics show that Lodi which is only 4 miles from Stockton has less than 3% population of African-Americans, yet this changes to 48% African-American in Stockton 4 miles away. Costco and Home Depot in Stockton does not attract customers from Lodi because many Lodians refuse to travel the four miles to Stockton to visit these stores. As a result, Costco and Home Depot built new stores in Lodi to attract these more prosperous Lodi customers. What about the Real estate agents of Lodi ? By steering minority buyers away from high density white neighborhoods ( zip code 95258 is 98% white). they keep house prices high in this "protected area". But what about the housing collapse? According to Citi-Data numbers the average African American house in Lodi is over TWICE as valuable as the average white owner.
Compare $675,000 for African Americans to $320,000 for whites-- from 2010 Census data. What is happening today? BLOCKBUSTING big time. The REO's and Short sales have dried up so some means has to be developed to encourage whites to sell. It's happening today..! The local city council and planning department which is made up of mostly estate agents has recently decided to support "diversity" by approving a MAGNET for low income customers right in the heart of expensive housing. A SUPER WALMART....designed to attract customers from Stockton. Why do I say this..because there is already a Walmart in Lodi, but the middle class customers will not be found there. As a few customers have explained---it's like a welfare office or the DMV..Where do these people come from? The result is that the white customers ( not the toothless ones) do their low-priced bargain shopping at Target or the new "White" Costco. YUP...blockbusting via fear mongering is used to coax the few white house owners who are NOT underwater to sell and move to the rural county areas which have a much higher cost of admission. Acreage costs big bucks and this will help churn sales and keep prices high.
Over the past year lower cost short sales and REO's have attracted African Americans to Lodi in search for a lower crime rate. Stockton has a crime rate similar to Detroit or Oakland. The block busting is done legally through the city government. The campaign contributions for all political candidates is controlled by Realtors and developers. Many streets, buildings and some parks are named after local Realtors. The local police department supports the local estate agent / city government (same people) apartheid.
Get this; in Memphis, TN there was such rampant race-baiting real estate practices and overt block-busting that some developer decided to start a new residential development right on the state line between TN and Mississippi. The place was called, now get this "Whitehaven." No, really, the idea was for those who were afraid of black families moving in next to them so now we are going to have an entire town and since only one agent was allowed to sell in this town then you could always be sure Whitehaven would remain lilly white. Then when the town was built out and a few hundred families had taken refuge in Whitehaven the federal government passed the Fair Housing Act. Within 5 years Whitehaven was primarily black. Now it is a well cared for sub-division of Shelby County and relatively stable pricewise.
I don't know why the FHA doesn't allow discrimination when buying homes as people naturally segregate themselves despite the laws. There would be no need for white flight anymore and people would feel more comfortable with their neighbors because they are more likely to share a common history, culture and life goals.
Check out the census map here:
http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map
and select the 'Distribution of of racial and ethnic groups in 2010' map. Put in any major zip code and it will be easy to find out where the whites/blacks/hispanics/etc live. Very few areas are actually very 'diverse'.
ELC
2012 Sep 8, 8:14pm
Can we blame all racism on real estate agents now too?
Sure, it's far easier than taking personal responsibility.
Found this interesting article:
http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/147.html
“Blockbusting†refers to the efforts of real-estate agents and real-estate speculators to trigger the turnover of white-owned property and homes to African Americans. Often characterized as “panic peddling,†such practices frequently accompanied the expansion of black areas of residence and the entry of African Americans into neighborhoods previously denied to them. In evidence as early as 1900, blockbusting techniques included the repeated—often incessant—urging of white homeowners in areas adjacent to or near black communities to sell before it became “too late†and their property values diminished. Agents frequently hired African American subagents and other individuals to walk or drive through changing areas soliciting business and otherwise behaving in such a manner as to provoke and exaggerate white fears. Purchasing homes cheaply from nervous white occupants, the panic peddler sold dearly to African Americans who faced painfully limited choices and inflated prices in a discriminatory housing market. Often providing financing and stringent terms to a captive audience, the blockbuster could realize substantial profits.
Blockbusting depended upon a high degree of residential segregation and provided the means for transferring white property into black hands at a time when mainstream real-estate and financial institutions refused to sell to blacks or facilitate their movement into all-white neighborhoods. Even as late as 1951, major newspapers continued to run separate ads for “colored†housing, thus fostering, as well as reflecting, the conditions that gave rise to such market manipulation. Especially evident in the wake of black population increases associated with the first and second Great Migrations, the movement into newer, outlying neighborhoods was fueled by increased demand for housing on the part of blacks, the growing ability of a rising middle class to pay for it, and the desire for a better life and escape from the more impoverished sections of the urban core. Working virtually, if not covertly, in tandem, “respectable†real-estate agents flocked to do business in transitional areas once they had been broken by the maverick blockbusters. The net result was a gold-rush effect that destabilized residential communities as it maximized racial tensions and fears.
Attempts to combat blockbusting and stabilize white ethnic neighborhoods culminated in the 1971 passage of a series of ordinances that prohibited the placement of “For Sale†and related signs on residential property. The Illinois Supreme Court ultimately ruled such measures unconstitutional. Subsequent efforts to thwart panic peddling included the promotion of home-equity insurance plans. Pioneered by Oak Park in 1978 in the effort to manage suburban integration, such proposals were picked up by neighborhood groups on the Southwest and Northwest Sides in an attempt to maintain the racial status quo. A coalition of such groups known as Save Our Neighborhoods/Save Our City (SON/SOC) emerged after Harold Washington's 1983 election to push various home-equity insurance measures, including a referendum. A source of tension and racial polarization, the referendum passed in November 1988—under new state law and over city opposition—allowing the establishment of home-equity districts in selected precincts.
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