Fair Housing
By: Dennis Norman
After writing a post about the The Fair Housing Act for a blog for the real estate consumer I realized there is information in that article that could be very valuable to the real estate investor as well. While the focus of the article was a report that had just been issued by The National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity which stated, among other things, “discrimination continues to be endemic, intertwined into the very fabric of our lives. Ironically, even though more Americans than ever are living in diverse communities, residential segregation remains high……there are at least 4 million fair housing violations in our country every year. That is far too many.”
Did you notice the part “at least 4 million fair housing violations ….every year”? As a real estate investor this should be cause to look at your practices and make sure that you are not doing anything, whether intentional or not, that would have you included in that statistic. There are many resources available to help you comply with the fair housing act….one of those is a list of prohibited real estate practices published by the National Archives and Records Administration.
There were several other interesting parts of this report that I thought a real estate investor would find interesting and informative. This included a press release issued earlier this year by the U.S. Census Bureau titled “An Older and More Diverse Nation by Mid-Century“ which said presently minorities make up roughly 1/3 of the US population. The report continues by stating “(minorities) are expected to become the majority by 2042″. In addition, the report states by 2030 “nearly one in five US residents is expected to be 65 and over”. To the astute investor this presents the opportunity to serve these niche markets. The smart investor will learn about the wants and needs of these growing markets and position themselves to serve them as best as they can.
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