As we know, real estate can be a problematic industry, and an industry that is often difficult to change. Now that I run my own brokerage in New York - I can adopt policies that I think should exist industry-wide.
So that's what I'm doing! As of today - any of our buyers will have the option to withhold their name and/or any other personal identifying information from any offers they submit on any properties. Likewise, for our listing agents, they are prohibited from sharing any personal identifying information about buyers that submit offers on their listings (which they shouldn't be doing anyway).
You might think - this is a small thing, why does this even matter? And you're right, it is small, it doesn't do anything to combat the massive housing affordability crisis we have in our country. But, it does help with a small issue. People make decisions based on names all the time, and your name gives away a lot of information about you.
Let's say you have a seller or an agent who is biased or outright discriminatory against queer people, and they get an offer that has two male sounding or two female sounding names, they might make a decision based on that, and that's discrimination. If we can remove the path to bias or the path to discrimination, we might be able to solve that one issue for our clients.
While it may be a small issue, if I can solve a small problem for any of our clients, I'll consider it a success.
Thanks for listening,
Anthony Ruperto
Broker/Owner - Ally Realty
914-494-0141
6 Eliza Street,
Beacon, NY 12508