How to Understand the Process of Blockbusting
In the historical past, many methods of racially segragating neighborhoods existed. One of the most common was known as blockbusting. Thankfully, blockbusting is viewed as an unethical and illegal practice today. This article will describe exactly what it is, and what the diligent home buyer should look out for.In the beginning, the practice of blockbusting was used as a way to increase the movement of economically successful minorities into neighborhoods outside the inner city ghettos that they were currently housed in. To do this, many previous real estate professionals used the following techniques.In the begining, the families living in the chosen suburban neighborhood was fooled into thinking that their neighborhood was being taken over by minorities moving in. This was accomplished by the real estate agents hiring blacks and other minority races to act as agent provocateurs. .
Some simple tactics included hiring a minority woman to push a carriage in a predominately white neighborhood, and thereby instill the fear of “their kind” moving into the “whites only” neighborhood. Once a family in the area got concerned enough, they were encouraged to sell their home at a highly reduced price. Their home was then resold for a healthy profit to awaiting minority families. At that point, the real estate company would then use the fact that a minority family has moved in as “evidence” that the neighborhood was being taken over by blacks, or some other minority, something which at the time was seen as fearful and problematic by many in the white community. The next step in the process was for the real estate developer to blanket the targeted area with flyers and pamphelets offering to buy the other houses as a reduced cost to prevent the white households from losing any more money than they already have..
Superior colorado homes, Longmont real estate, or anywhere else in the states, it's almost always the same: Another common strategy was for the real estate professional to buy up homes in the area and leave them abandoned. Over time, the disrepair seen would be used as a reason to devalue the other homes in the immediate area. These techniques were often used to not only encourage white flight, but to also sell the same homes to other families at highly elevated prices. .
However, with the national exposure of the practice in the news media in the early 1960s and the advent of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, it became highly illegal for real estate agents to claim that minority groups were moving into the neighborhood with the intent to artificially devalue the property, and then, in a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Jones v. Alfred H Mayer Co. (1968) It was determined that the Thirteenth Amendment gave the federal government the authority to prohibit racial discrimination in the private housing markets. Not only did this help to lead to more diverse neighborhoods, but it also helped minorities obtain better deals than they were originally offered for their new homes.
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