Lee Davenport, Ph.D

By: Lee Davenport, Ph.D

It is such an honor every single time I have the privilege of sharing with agents throughout the nation the history of unfair housing. I follow up that history with where we are today and how we can proactively advocate (not alienate) for housing opportunity and access for all (what I call being a “fair housing DECODER”). I was recently facilitating at a conference, and one of the learners offered up this comment:

“If there are approximately 30,000 fair housing violations reported last year throughout the entire US, but there are easily millions of transactions between renting and buying each year, then we’re not doing so bad. The problem is not so big – we don’t need to really talk about this.”

First, an important point to note about these numbers: they likely do not represent the true frequency with which fair housing violations happen. It is likely true that only a small number of cases where discrimination occurred are actually filed. That’s why fair housing testers often discover high rates of discrimination. For example, in the Newsday investigation, testers found that agents treated the white tester and the tester of color differently 40% of the time.

This is why HUD also does its decennial Housing Discrimination Study – because we know the number of complaints filed is only one data point that does not accurately capture the full picture of discrimination in the marketplace. Just because someone isn’t filing a complaint, doesn’t mean discrimination isn’t occurring.

Now, back to why we as an industry should care about fair housing violations, even if they only represent a small percentage of transactions on paper.

People Over Percentages Curbs the McNamara Fallacy

In response, I shared an analogy to provide another avenue for understanding. I talked about how I am fascinated by true crime podcasts. But, I said, make no mistake that these true crime podcasts exist because violations are being committed.

When a crime occurs, we could analogously take the legend of the ostrich (head in the sand) stance and say, “Well, statistically, murder is outside the norm, so I don’t need to take the ordinary precautions, like choosing a public place when arranging to meet someone new for the first time. Or telling my friends, family or work team where I’m going nor give them the contact information of the stranger.”

Yes, hopefully, most of our encounters with strangers will be pleasant at best, and uneventful, at worst. So, most of us take precautions, as we should—especially in the real estate business where safety is a top concern. We send screenshots of profiles and accounts to our group chat. We take pictures of the license plate. We have new home-buying prospects complete contact forms. We go to our familiar public spots – whether cafe or office – so that there are others who may recognize us. The list goes on.

We choose to take precautions because it’s important for us to stay safe even if the statistics say that we’re unlikely to be harmed.

This is a form of the McNamara Fallacy, a term coined by the sociologist Daniel Yankelovich, which means, “ignoring valuable, but not necessarily measurable, information to instead focus only on that which is quantifiable.”

Instead of focusing on whether something happens often, I am interested in learning how to make sure that I can avoid what happened to those who were violated, and that’s the attitude I take into real estate when it comes to fair housing as well.

Another real-world example is the occurrence of breast cancer. Statistics say that one in eight women will get breast cancer. From a probability standpoint that means roughly 87% of women will never deal with breast cancer. Using the conference learner’s logic, I could basically breathe a sigh of relief and cross my fingers that I’ll be in the 87% who never deal with breast cancer.

Instead of using statistics to tell me my likelihood, I use the data to identify if an occurrence happens, how can I lessen the impact. Thank God, I did! At the time that I discovered that I had breast cancer, I was considered “too young”, and my primary care doctor dismissed my concerns. I found a new doctor immediately and discovered that the pain I was having was indeed breast cancer. But because I used the statistics, not to dismiss the likelihood of me getting cancer, but rather to arm myself with knowledge and education, I knew that pain at any age warranted a serious evaluation. By letting the data cultivate a quest for knowledge, the cancer was found at stage zero.

Don’t Let Data Deny Someone’s Humanity

What does this have to do with fair housing?

In short, no professional wants to be deleted by business contacts who no longer trust that you are looking out for them! Just like it is much better to discover cancer at stage zero than the ominous stage four, it is also better to proactively identify unfair housing at a point where it can be nipped in the bud.

Similarly, I want to challenge us as real estate professionals to not look at the data concerning fair housing and decide that it doesn’t apply to us or our business because it’s unlikely to happen to one of our clients.

At the same time, I am not asking you to fear and be paralyzed by hypothetical negative outcomes – I want the opposite for you.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Madame Marie Curie, 2X Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist

Instead, I hope your takeaway will be that it still happens — once is too often — which means we must be fair housing decoders who seek and champion understanding. We must proactively educate our team, clients, and vendors on what unfair housing (which includes unfair lending) looks like, and NAR’s Fairhaven simulation, Bias Override course, and ACT! plan are quintessential starting points. If we as the pros can spot it in the early stages, we will likely boost organically the trust of those who have come to rely on our expertise.

Dr. Lee Davenport is a real estate coach/educator and author (including Be a Fair Housing D.E.C.O.D.E.R. and How to Profit with Your Personality). Dr. Lee trains real estate agents around the globe on how to work smarter with their unique personalities and how to “advocate, not alienate,” so everyone has access and opportunity in real estate.