Realtor.com and Redfin both announced they would not include neighborhood crime data.
At least two home buying sites have eschewed including crime maps for neighborhoods on their websites over concerns that the crime data available is biased against minorities.
Realtor.com and Redfin both announced on the same day in December that they will no longer provide crime data for neighborhoods on their websites over racial bias concerns.
On December 13, Realtor.com’s CEO David Doctorow wrote in a blog post that the company has been working to “break down those hurdles” relating to discrimination in home ownership.
“For example, earlier this month, we removed the crime map layer from all search results on Realtor.com to rethink the safety information we share on Realtor.com and how we can best integrate it as part of a consumer’s home search experience,” Doctorow wrote.
Doctorow added that Realtor.com will now “reimagine” how to provide safety data for buyers.
PUBLISHERS NOTES: This is what I’ve been warning Salisbury residents about. The Salisbury Police Department will no longer go to a theft, (for example) unless you know who did the crime. They send you to their website where you can file a complaint there.
Hmmmm…by doing that, aren’t they themselves promoting racism????
They don’t want you to be aware that you are investing in a home in a ghetto area.
The SPD needs to be done away with.
This is totally the worst of decisions I live in a crime ghetto area & I would want any possible buyers to know all the facts. My neighborhood once was nice but I’ve lived in this area for 52 years. People buying a home need more than schools, and home curb appeal. I would love good neighbors but when they move it they move out in a year from the crime. Salisbury in the city is not getting better & that’s a fact, you can thank our mayor,Chief of police & city council for the surge. Truth is always best you are terrible realtors to lie by omission.
A realtor certainly isn’t going to divulge information to a prospective buyer that the neighborhood is a drug infested ghetto. They should be held liable for withholding information of that sort before a person invests their lives in an undesirable neighborhood. It’s the same as not divulging something that they know is wrong with the house. But all they think about is the almighty dollar,.
Is it morally responsible to show a house to a young family in a neighborhood where 80% of felony crimes occur without telling the prospective buyers that, or is it okay to let the suckers figure that out for themselves when bullets hit their house, their kids are instantly bullied at the bus stop, or some crackheads empty their place while they’re at work?