Buying? Understand this: things your agent cannot discuss!

Do you know that there are some things that your REALTOR (or real estate agent) is prohibited from discussing with you?

Fair Housing Laws prevent real estate professionals from telling consumers certain types of information, particularly demographic information, anywhere in the United States. For instance, your agent cannot discuss with you these things:

• where racial groups have the highest concentration
• where people are found by religious affiliation
• where certain languages are spoken or not spoken
• whether there are halfway houses for alcoholics nearby
• whether neighbors are mentally ill

These are just a few examples of protected groups covered by the Fair Housing Laws. As you might imagine, this is for consumer protection, and the laws are well-intended.

But it can also work against those with the best of intentions who are not trying to discriminate with malice.

Case in point: A couple of years ago, a genteman contacted a fellow agent in California who was interested in relocating to the San Jose area. He told him that his wife is Vietnamese and they wanted to live where their son would grow up hearing and learning the Vietnamese language; he wondered if he could tell him where in San Jose the neighborhoods with large Vietnamese populations lived. He knew that there's a large Vietnamese population in San Jose and Santa Clara County, and that was one of the reasons they were considering a move here.

Obviously this is a person who was not trying to do something bad at all, but even so, it was illegal for my colleague to tell him the information that he considered vitally important. What he could do, and did do, was send him a link to local Vietnamese groups, magazines, etc. and also a link to a website with language information, which had the information that he sought. (That site, by the way, is the Modern Language Associations site. If you have friends who are professors of languages, theres a good chance they are members of the MLA!)

In some states, the laws are even more restrictive on what agents can tell consumers. My advice is to ask your REALTOR upfront what he or she may not discuss. Also, ask where the desired information may be found if the agent cannot tell you what you want to know. For instance, agents may be hedgy on telling you where sex offenders live for a number of reasons (are they a protected class because of mental illness? that might be a reason). Many will want you to do your own research, especially since that population might move around. So they'll tell you, check CrimeReports.com or another similar site for current info.

Sometimes people want to know if they're buying in a 'white collar or 'blue collar neighborhood. Or perhaps they want to know the education level or income level of a particular area. This kind of demographic information is shaky ground for real estate professionals. If you want a breakdown by region in the population, check the US Census Bureau.

And please understand that if you ask your REALTOR about these things, he or she may be prohibited from telling you. It's one of those cases where it's just not always obvious what should be legal or illegal all the time. So if you ask upfront, you will understand the legal restrictions on what your agent can tell you.