At a recent Open House, a really nice woman came in, spent a long time looking the place over, and then struck up a conversation.
"So, is this a racially mixed neighborhood?" she asked.
I explained to her that I answered that question, I could wind up in the slammer with a revoked real estate license - in my case 4 revoked licenses!
"But you don't understand, my husband and I are an inter-racial couple, and I want to be sure we find a neighborhood that would be comfortable for us."
Now,I live in our nation's capital, which happens to house the Department of Housing and Urban Development - um, they would be the Fair Housing police, among other things. And we probably get more than our fair share of "shoppers", HUD investigators posing as buyers. While I thought this nice lady was probably a for real buyer, I was not about to break the law to answer her question.
So, what can an agent do?
Most neighborhoods now have web sites. These often give the names and phone numbers of people who are officers or active on various committees.
I've started to put web site links on my fact sheets, And it's not just for the demographics, but because they often have lots of interesting stuff on the history and neighborhood amenities.
So, I look at them as my little Stay Out of Jail Free cards!
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