Fair Housing Laws....Feedback?

Nycbrokerdax, I work the same neighborhoods you do, and 234 and 41 are important selling points to me too -- but I understand the idea that they are also "code." As someone who was raised in a city where race and school integration were really at the forefront of civic life (yep, Little Rock) I do think NYC needs to balance where it can -- and Fair Housing is one obvious place. It's shocking to me that two of the four largest brokerages in the city are being sued for Fair Housing violations (both in Brooklyn, where you and I don't work, but still).

So as much as the ruling on school districts (which has been in the pipeline for a year or two) is annoying, I applaud the reasoning behind it . . .any customers' thoughts?

ali r.
[downtown broker}

i don't get it. this is a matter of public record. what is the plus in making it more difficult for people to find out something that is not private information?

what happens if a customer looks at a listing and asks you? do you lower the cone of silence and whisper the answer? why doesn't the city figure out ways to improve other schools rather than this nonsense?

I understand both points of view, however, I felt that there was something strange about mentioning the school district, I could not put my finger on it, but it certainly seems to have some element of something or other ....it is a way of mentioning a certain preference over another but indirectly, pretty complex

i still don't understand. if you have kids and want them to go to public school, this is a crucial data point. i believe this is a standard piece of information across the country in every real estate transaction. we have a very difficult real estate market here. the idea in difficult markets is to do everything to make it easier to buy. so, now its illegal to tell people about the school district?

I agree with the new policy. I would say that it is an attempt to avoid the Balkanization that has occurred in the suburbs from occurring in the city. In the suburbs, properties in the right school districts trade for a lot more money than identical houses across the street that are in a different school district.

I thought the Fair Housing law already prohibited discrimination on the basis of familial status? Isn't a listing of the school district something that implies discrimination based on familial status?

columbiacounty: I believe the law is aimed at a problem called "steering", and it's very real, even today.

nycbrokerdax: From your firm's point of view, the minor marketing edge you might derive by talking freely about school zones is vastly outweighed by the risk of getting sued. I'm pretty sure that's why you got that e-mail, not because the law changed.

Just to be clear, I don't think the law specifically forbids discussing school zones. The law forbids steering, and the case law with regard to exactly what that means is still evolving.

isn't discrimination about my not renting or selling to you based on your race? does no one see any difference between listing the racial makeup of a building (which is clearly private and irrelevant and i presume illegal) and telling someone which school their children are eligible to attend?

It's precisely *because* it's a matter of public record that it becomes steering when a broker brings it up. Whether that equates to racial steering is fuzzier, but NYC has the most racially-segregated public school system in the nation. So probably yes.

Additionally, there are myriad factors to sift through in choosing a place to live. If schools are important to a particular buyer, that person can determine what makes for a "good school", visit a few, determine what catchment area he wants to be in, and provide a broker with specific geographical requirements. The broker doesn't have to provide the lead, and is in no position to advise what is a "good school" for a particular individual -- education counseling is totally outside the training and expertise of a real estate agent.

Moreover, when brokers steer buyers to five or ten public school catchment areas, education-minded parents are unlikely to develop other schools to their potential, further entrenching the good/bad school problem.

Good points, alanhart. I believe it is also a matter of public record that the real estate industry fought hard against fair housing laws back in the 60s. The industry wanted to be able to do their steering without suffering any consequences. Well, there are consequences now and there should be consequences.

I understand the reasoning behind the regulation, and I know that it is to prevent steering, but what I think is taking it too far is that if a buyer now asks me "what school districts is this apartment in" I cannot state to them the facts. I have to direct them to a website to find out the information for themselves. I understand that there are issues with praising one district which implies that another is not as good, but to not even be able to answer the question as to what district an apartment is in is counterintuitive.

This is probably the best recent example of what goes on in NYC so far as the hysteria over zoning and how that inevitably intersects with race:

Upper West Side Media Types: “Watch What We Say, Not What We Do”

Posted By Steve Sailer On 7 November 2008 @ 1:33 In General | Comments Disabled

Manhattan’s Upper West Side has perhaps the highest concentration of influential news media types in the country. For the last 48 hours, they’ve engaged in an orgy of[1] self-congratulation over electing Obama. But, now it’s time to get back to what they, personally, are most concerned over: keeping their kids [2] away from Non-Asian Minority kids. From the New York Times:

[3] As Schools Grapple With Crowding, Prospect of Rezoning Angers Manhattan Parents
By JENNIFER MEDINA

At Public School 199 in the heart of the Upper West Side, a music teacher who once had her own classroom now keeps her instruments in a small closet, stacking cymbals and drums onto a cart as she visits more than two dozen classes each week. Students who need tutoring in reading or math sit behind a makeshift wall of metal cabinets in the hallway. There are seven kindergarten classes this year, up from three in 2000.

And on a recent Friday afternoon, it took six staff members 15 minutes to find a room for a training workshop. P.S. 199 has 663 students in kindergarten through fifth grade this year, nearly 200 above its capacity in the West 70th Street building it has long shared with the Center School, a middle school that draws students from the Lincoln Center area north to Harlem. Public School 191, just nine blocks south, draws largely from the nearby housing projects and has more than 107 empty seats available.

It might seem that there are easy solutions to the overcrowding in District 3, which encompasses the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem. The district has neighborhoods facing a burgeoning school-age population, in part because of a high-rise building boom, with pockets where the number of children are in decline. Why not send some of P.S. 199’s overflow to fill the seats at P.S. 191, or move the Center School and let the popular P.S. 199 expand to take up the whole three-story building?

But in New York City, where real estate and access to good schools often lead to Olympics-level competition, even the specter of changing school boundaries can raise the hackles of parents who chose their high-priced homes precisely because of those boundaries. The topic of rezoning is so sensitive that education officials have referred to it as the “third rail” — and no one seems to remember the last time a significant boundary change was enacted.

For months now, officials and members of District 3’s Community Education Council, the elected board that must approve any rezoning plans, have gone back and forth on painstaking negotiations and proposals. At a meeting on Wednesday night, the council is expected to introduce its resolution, which members would vote on later this month.

The heated debate dividing neighbors is likely to repeat itself across town later this month, when city education officials begin discussing the rezoning of parts of District 2, which encompasses the Upper East Side and much of Lower Manhattan. District 2 is plagued by some of the city’s worst overcrowding, particularly in TriBeCa and on the Upper East Side.

In the debate over the fate of P.S. 199 and the Center School, there have been accusations of racism, and a flier calling one school administrator who opposed a move a dictator. Parents — and prospective parents — of P.S. 199 have set up an elaborate campaign against changing the school boundaries, using the Internet and old-fashioned petitions on clipboards to protest.

“You move to a neighborhood in no small part because you are attracted to the school — it’s a core decision you are making,” said Eric Shuffler, who is among the parents of 4-year-olds fighting for kindergarten spots in 2009 at P.S. 199. “Something that you had planned on is now being taken and it’s compounded by the fact that you don’t know what happens to your children once the decision is made.”

It’s not like Mr. Shuffler and his friends are prejudiced or anything. I mean, they’d love to have Obama’s daughters go to P.S. 199.

hold on ....

how did we jump from providing information on which school district a place is in to steering and recommending?

i'm in complete agreement that brokers should not advise on good or bad schools; I would hope that prospective buyers would want alternative sources of information for that anyway.

but why make people search to find out whether a particular building is in or out of their preferred school district?

also, would appreciate your data source for "NYC has the most racially-segregated public school system in the nation." Even if true (and I cannot imagine how you obtained this information)not listing the school district on apartment listings is not going to make one bit of difference.

Nice article. I forgot, the Balkanization is already well established in the city. What was I thinking? This change is not going to make one bit of difference.

columbiacounty.. the reason the state passed these new regulations is for example if an apartment was in what is considered a good school district agents would advertise as such by saying "located in the PS41 district" if it was not in as good a district, the agent would be unlikely to advertise the school district at all, since it would not help a potential sale. So based on this I do understand the aspect of not advertising the school district, but again I think not allowing the agent to give an answer if someone asks , which is a statement of fact, is taking it too far.

Let the agents say that the buyer has to do their own research with regards to the school district, due to fair housing law. Aren't the buyers smart enough to figure it out?

Could somebody publish a map that shows the areas of the city where apartments have not been bid up in price because of school district? There are lots of single people and couples with no kids who would love to have that kind of information. Why overpay for something you don't use?

But dax, "how many white people live in the co-op?" is a statement of fact too, and we can't answer that ... demographic questions have long been outside our purview as real estate pros.

ali r.
[downtown broker}

407PAS "I thought the Fair Housing law already prohibited discrimination on the basis of familial status? Isn't a listing of the school district something that implies discrimination based on familial status?
" that's exactly what i meant to say :)

I just refer people to these sites, perhaps it's better that the parents do the research themselves. In some cases it can be tricky, one side of the street can be zoned differently than the other side. I found this out the hard way on a deal on the UWS.

http://maps.nycboe.net/
http://www.greatschools.net/schools/districts/New_York/NY

don't want to beat to death but...

clearly, asking about racial make up of a building is over the line (and, by the way, although it is a statement of fact, it is not public information); perhaps I am overly naive but people want the best school for their kids because of their kids not because they are racially prejudiced. our country has been grappling with ways to make this more fair across the income spectrum for decades and as a theoretical matter, i think many, many parents would agree.

but when its your kid or kids, theory is out the window. the bottom line is "get me the best possible school."

All of a sudden you want to trust what the broker says? lol. As a parent I would prefer to look into it myself.

Theburkhardtgroup's post brings up the other way a firm can get sued: if the agent gets the zone wrong... or even if she gets it right, but it changes afterward.

On balance, it's just good business to dodge the question. To much risk in answering it.

Also "too" much.

Something else just occurred to me. People with children tend to raise their own costs through their preference for certain school districts. Instead of seeing improvements more equally spread across all school districts, concentrating improvements in a few areas raises the prices of the apartments in those specific areas, making it less affordable for parents who are trying to raise children.

No, Columbia, it isn't -- my mom and dad (both Jews with strong records of supporting civil rights causes) had a knock-down drag-out over this when I was a young teenager. The "good" schools in the south are white, mostly Christian privates, and many, many upper-class parents send their kids out of the public system to take advantage of those schools with higher budgets, smaller classes, and better test scores. My father was adamant that I stay in the public system, not just because he didn't want me in a religious school (Exeter was discussed too) but arguing that it was good for me to be exposed a spectrum of race and class, and that it was good for the public system to have some rich white kids whose parents had political pull stay in it.

I don't have kids yet so I don't know if I would make the same decision he did, but I hope so.

ali r.
{downtown broker]

"our country has been grappling with ways to make this more fair across the income spectrum for decades and as a theoretical matter, i think many, many parents would agree.

but when its your kid or kids, theory is out the window. the bottom line is "get me the best possible school."

That's the beauty of our country, in theory we want it to be more fair, in practice, we're willing to do anything to make sure that it does not become more fair.

If people want the best school for their kids they can spend some time on it, instead of being handed it in a RE tearsheet or whatever. In fact, all of the best public schools are that way because of parental involvement -- hours on end.

"Get me the best possible item x" works better when shopping for high-end luxury goods -- and even then only maybe. "Get me the best possible fit for my particular child's educational needs" is a much more appropriate approach, and for those parents who can't navigate the system to find that fit, there are consultants who help them. NY's five or so "good schools" have become brand-names, often inappropriately.

A bonus for brokers: referring buyers to external sources protects brokers from buyer-rage in the event of redistricting.

columbiacounty, http://www.nysun.com/new-york/citys-schools-are-among-americas-most-segregated/22083/

So black professionals are not just as curious as white professional about what school district they want their kids to attend? The laws is totally idiotic.

can we at least separate "steering" from providing the basic info? no one has suggested that real estate brokers should be used in any way shape or form to provide advice on which school district is best? OK? agreed?

the issue is whether or not it is fair for a real estate listing to include basic information on schools.

for the fun of it, take a look at this

http://www.stonehouseproperties.com/147ReservoirRoad/147ReservoirRoad.pdf

lists the various schools along with other relevant facts. as i said earlier, my impression is that this is standard across the board.

what is the problem?

ali r--- thank you for your thoughts.

i am somewhat aware of the situation in the south as I had a business for a number of years in Jackson, TN about 80 miles west of memphis. horribly enough, the public school system is still administered by a federal judge dating back to integration issues in the 70's. the problem that we had there as a business was that we could not recruit middle managers with families because (black or white) they were afraid (physically) to send their kids to public school and would struggle to afford private school tuition particularly if they had more than one child.

i applaud the decision that your parents made; that took real guts and I'm glad that it worked out. but when parents are concerned about the physical safety of their children, I cannot blame them for making the choices that they often do.

No, Columbia, I get that, and I don't want to sound too holier-than-thou, 'cause I ended up going to a rich white Ivy league college!

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Manhattan is so small it's not as if people are asking if black people live in Harlem...everyone knows the different neighborhoods of manhattan and i think the color green is more relevant than skin color.

or so you think julia

It's not that easy being green!

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/green.htm

Oh, oh, I really wanted to post the Leonard Cohen song, "Everybody Knows"

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Can a buyer make school district part of the requirements they give to their (buy-side) broker? For example when I was looking I told my broker not to waste my time or hers with any listings that were not light and pet friendly. Can I no longer say "in the PS 41 district"? Will I have to spec the requirements as Village/West Village and then check every potential address in the appropriate data banks? Sounds like a very well intended measure (and I applaud efforts to dismatle the defacto segregation of New York public schools, check out dismissal time at PS 41 and you would think this was Sarah Palin's Alaska for all the diversity) that will only result in wasted time by both buyers and brokers.

Well lizyank,
You mentioned PS41 so I looked around a little. How funny, a full page for Corcoran on page 5 of the
school newsletter:

http://www.ps41.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ps41news_fall_08.pdf

Talk about your targeted marketing. Since when did public schools start accepting corporate sponsorships? I guess things have changed since I was in elementary school. I also found a ad from Warburg somewhere else on the web site.

How will kids learn to question the world when their nap time is sponsored by the big real estate companies?

Lizyank - pls don't rely on your broker. Anyone "in the know" would never have bought in the newer Extell towers for their "PS199" zoning because things can change.

407PAS...you need your own blog..i love your postings!!

Frontporch/ali - I'm sure you've heard of parents in NJ switching their kids' school in the last year, just so they can come from a less stellar district when applying to college (esp. the Ivies). So go to school K-11 in a district like Summit/Short Hills/Milburn et al, and 12 in Orange or some other place like that.

It's hard to know what to do as a parent. Do I deliberate pick a "lesser" school where the teacher might spend more time with troubled students but my kid gets exposed to socio-economic and/or racial diversity? Or not? IMO, if you know your kid is not going to be distracted and negatively influenced by peers, I would totally send to a "lesser" school and be in a better position when jockeying for a college spot.

Actually I was asking the question totally rhetorically since I do not have children nor or they on the future agenda (which at my age would be rather challenging although we all know there are doctors who for enough money seem to be willing to artifically impregnate anyone, but that's another rant) but I recognize the desire for top educational resources (my personal definition of which would include socio-economic, as well as racial, diversity. The Obama girls are darling but having them or New York versions in a classroom would not diversify it as much as having kids whose parents were cops or construction or factory workers of any race) for those who do.

As for PS 41...I pick on it only because its my alma mater. Although when I went there (and we washed clothes on rocks at the Hudson River), the newsletter wasn't sponosred by a brokerage house. In fact there wasn't a newsletter....and the only real estate office in the neighborhood had signs in the window for rentals under $100.

lizyank, now ps 41 recruits heavily for brokerage support, sending letters to agents in the area asking them to support things like the school fundraisers -- which I naively did a year or two ago, only to discover that my donations were not credited in the program and that the evening was "sponsored" by Douglas Elliman.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Thanks Julia, I'm glad you enjoy my posts. ;-) Maybe I will work on my own little blog but it is fun hanging out in this space.

As for switching high schools to a less desirable one in order to improve the chances of getting into a top school, wow, that had never occurred to me. That's a clever way to try to game the system. Maybe the Ivies pick up on that ploy.

I think the legacy system should be dismantled. I remember reading a study that showed that the SAT scores of legacy students lagged behind the scores of their harder working peers. But, you know, the parents of legacy students keep sending money to their Alma Maters in order to hold on to their enrollment privileges.

I totally agree with lizyank Manhattan has a class structure not a race structure. I just cannot understand how this relates to Manhattan..if I had enough money to live on Bedford Street (my favorite street in manhattan) who would care if I were black,white or whatever...co-ops care about financials. I'm not being simplistic I realize the south and certain other areas of the country are different but bklyn, manhattan I just don't get it.

But race is a proxy for class. If I see a black or Hispanic face in my neighborhood, do I first assume that he or she works here or lives here?

nyc10023...i cannot believe you would think twice where a black/hispanic face in your neighborhood lives or works there they do both..I have black friends (much richer than myself) who live on cpw and I have never heard them say once they were uncomfortable with being there..it's all about the money..the idea i would stop and say whoa a black person is walking in my neighborhood call the kkk is crazy...no one i have ever known thinks that way.

Julia,
I think the struggle is over combining children of different socioeconomic backgrounds in the same schools. The public school system is not one of those things you can control, no matter how much money you have in the bank. You can try to buy into the right buildings but the city can redraw the school boundaries or transfer students between the schools.

I see black and Hispanic faces all the time when I walk around New York. I don't assume anything about where they live or work. Actually, given the vast differences in housing costs, from inexpensive rent-stabilized units to multi-million dollar apartments, New York has achieved an incredible level of diversity in its neighborhoods. People are just not as segregated in New York as they are in the suburbs, where each subdivision can be tied directly to a specific income, quite easily.

Who said anything about calling the KKK? I am not saying that this is a positive thing. 10023 is very white, barring the Amsterdam Houses. Would you really, really make the assumption that a non-white person lived in the area? The last time I looked on the playgrounds, stores, etc. the black/brown faces were pushing the strollers, behind the counter. Of course there are non-white people living on CPW with lots of $. But do you really think that the demographics of 10023 (minus Amsterdam Houses) reflect the overall demographics of NYC?

407pas...ditto

Actually, don't take my word for it. Simply look up the statistics.

nyc10023,
Sure, I know what you're saying, I guess I don't think of specific zip codes when walking around and assume that the people I see might live or work within a 50 block radius.

The rich have certainly pushed out a lot of people by bidding up the price of housing. I guess this is one of the reasons I am against joined apartments. How do we encourage diversity in the city and affordable housing if units keep getting combined and priced out of the range of most middle class people? I know families are desperate for more space so I understand the other side of the argument.

Here is an interesting article:

http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/10023-zip-code

Furthermore, how do middle class people afford to stay in the city when everything built is in the "luxury" category of housing.