I can’t believe this still happens.  Even worse, I can’t believe a real estate agent would even comply with the seller’s racially discriminating requests.  This is the quickest path to a short real estate career.  Did the agent participate in the discrimination or did he just handle the situation poorly when he initially found out about the seller’s intent to discriminate?  While it’s not against the law to reject a buyer’s offer, it is against Fair Housing Laws to reject it based off of race or any other protected class.  According to the Huffington Post, “HUD said that in an interview with an investigator, the real estate agent for the property, Jeffrey Lowe of Lowe Group Chicago Inc., said Daniel Sabbia told him he would rather not sell to an African-American.”   The article implies that the listing agent still represented the sellers after learning about their intent to discriminate against the buyer.  This is where the agent messed up.  Whether he participated in the discriminative practice or not, he screwed up by not “firing” them immediately upon discovery of their racial intent.  He should have canceled his contract with the seller, withdrew his listing and notified the other agent about his no longer representing that client.

Original Article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/bridgeport-couple-charged_n_677473.html