Latest / #HomeForAll Podcast / Season 10 Episode 2 - Fair Housing with Alexia Smokler

Transcript

Season 10 Episode 2 - Fair Housing with Alexia Smokler · #HomeForAll Podcast

• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Well, greetings, ACAR members, and all of our other listeners to the ACAR Home for All podcast.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: It's so great to be back with you here again this week.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Kelli Moss, ACAR's communications director, and I am here to tell you that while construction is moving forward in suite 150, we are currently working inside the suite across the hall in our, well, our studio annex, as we're calling it now.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: And we're currently hosting some great guests in our temporary space.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: This week, our guest is the speaker from our annual multicultural networking event, and that guest is Alexia Smokler, NAR's Director of Fair Housing Policy and Programs.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: We have so much to ask her, and that is right ahead.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So guess what?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It's time to grab your coffee and your earbuds and make this spot your home for the next 30 or so minutes.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: We're happy that you're here.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: We'll introduce you to important people in your community and help you learn how to grow your real estate-related business.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: This is an adult show, and some adult language might occasionally creep into the conversation.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes, and the opinions shared on the podcast do not necessarily represent the views of the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors, Ohio Realtors, or the National Association of Realtors.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: That said, let's move forward and find out what makes Northeast Ohio the best for all of the cells.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It's been a busy day already today, right?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: It has.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And we have so much more to do today, including this interview that we're getting to right now.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So um, well, with all that said, I I guess I'm just gonna throw get things on the road and I'm gonna throw things over to you and we're gonna get started.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Kelli.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Um, I'm so excited today because we are joined by Alexia Smokler, who is the NAR Director of Fair Housing Policy and Programs.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Alexia, welcome.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for coming to the Cleveland area.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: It's great to be back.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: We have so many questions.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: We know you're gonna be with us later today for an event.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Um, and we're gonna talk more about those things this evening.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: But for our folks that can't make it to that event, this podcast is gonna help us kind of fill in the blanks there.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about fair housing locally, federally, and everything in between, I think.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So let's dive in.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Are you ready?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I'm ready, let's go.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So I think first let's think thinking a little generally.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: What are some of the biggest emerging fair housing risks that are on the horizon?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Um, and I'm thinking about AI, such a hot topic right now, automated valuations, tenant screening, which is a huge thing, and some other new technologies that you know our real estate industry is really kind of navigating and learning about.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: How's that impacting uh the fair housing landscape?
• 3:51
  Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
• 3:52
  Speaker: So the risk with a lot of these technologies, like AI, is that they are trained on information that is already biased.
• 4:02
  Speaker: So AI can reproduce the same biased assumptions and stereotypes that human beings uh can make.
• 4:11
  Speaker: So, for example, the National Fair Housing Alliance did testing on seven different AI models.
• 4:19
  Speaker: So they posed as consumers seeking housing and asking for recommendations, and it found that all seven models steered consumers to different zip codes based on their location, their language, their browsing history, their profile, or their inferred identity.
• 4:37
  Speaker: So the model could figure out who was asking, and then the models also had biased opinions about cities and neighborhoods.
• 4:46
  Speaker: So for just a regular consumer using a chat bot to begin their housing search, which we know that's how a lot of folks use it, um, it's already steering them.
• 4:57
  Speaker: So that just shows you the danger.
• 5:00
  Speaker: Um, and you know, I I just recently read about um this study coming out of the University of Pennsylvania, um, talking about the concept of cognitive surrender.
• 5:12
  Speaker: And this is this risk that because an AI sounds so confident when it's talking, that we just sort of go along with it and accept whatever it's saying and sort of abandon our own critical thinking abilities.
• 5:26
  Speaker: And so that's the number one piece of advice I want to give members as they're using AI in their business.
• 5:34
  Speaker: It looks like you want to jump in here and ask something else, Jamie.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Well, honestly, as you were saying all of that, there's a part of me that says, Well, that absolutely makes sense.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: This is such a great tool, it's such a time saver, but that's also terrifying, frankly, I think.
• 5:52
  Speaker: Yes.
• 5:52
  Speaker: But there are guardrails.
• 5:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:54
  Speaker: And so we have to remember that AI is just a tool, and a tool needs human supervision.
• 6:02
  Speaker: So if you look at sort of the low-risk ways to use AI in your business, um, these won't create too much of a problem.
• 6:11
  Speaker: Things like administrative tasks, helping you get organized, summarizing things, drafting things, that's pretty low risk.
• 6:21
  Speaker: Um, the risk comes in when AI is making decisions or recommendations that impact people's access.
• 6:29
  Speaker: So now we get to things like tenant screening.
• 6:32
  Speaker: We get to things like a safety app that you might use to screen whether you're gonna show someone a listing or not.
• 6:41
  Speaker: Um, in those cases, we do not want to let AI make the decisions for us.
• 6:46
  Speaker: We need to have our own guardrails in place so that we're not following along with biased recommendations.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: And I think that's something too for our members, you know, they have access to forewarn.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And I know anytime one of us is telling folks about this great tool for realtor safety, it's just that it's a tool, and you need to use it with every single person, not just the one that for whatever reason you you're thinking, oh yeah, I should probably check.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know this person.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: No, you should check everybody.
• 7:22
  Speaker: Yeah, there are a number of risks with the screening tools.
• 7:25
  Speaker: Right.
• 7:26
  Speaker: One is that you're right, you're only applying it to some people and not other people.
• 7:30
  Speaker: Um, then you know, some of these tools come up with a lot of information that is not actually relevant to safety.
• 7:39
  Speaker: Right.
• 7:39
  Speaker: It comes, it shows you speeding tickets, it shows you bankruptcies.
• 7:43
  Speaker: Um, so and and we'll get to this more in some of the other questions about screening.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:49
  Speaker: Um, but you really need to be really laser focused on safety.
• 7:53
  Speaker: And any information that you get out of out of this kind of a system, you have to ask, is this really a safety risk that, you know, they got a shoplifting violation 10 years ago?
• 8:05
  Speaker: Right.
• 8:06
  Speaker: Um and then, you know, to try to use the least discriminatory approach um to protecting your safety.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I can already tell Kelly is going to have a ton of future ideas for other topics and things that our members need to hear about.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Um, I wanna I wanna start.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I know we just did kind of a big picture look, but now I kind of want to do a little bit of a deeper dive, I guess, at a local level issue.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: The the timeliness of your visit is kind of off the charts.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So locally, really across the country, but here locally, we hear a lot about housing affordability.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Uh, and in that vein, we often hear that source of income discrimination is an increasing fair housing concern, particularly for renters using housing vouchers.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: What should realtors and housing providers understand about source of income protections and how they can avoid practices that can create a disparate impact for those protected classes?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: And in our area, there are a handful of communities that do have source of income in their local fair housing law.
• 9:20
  Speaker: And I think I read that your local fair housing center reported that like one of eight complaints had to do with criminal background screenings or something.
• 9:29
  Speaker: Yeah, so affordability is a huge issue.
• 9:33
  Speaker: I'm excited to talk about that a little bit later.
• 9:36
  Speaker: Um but you're you're correct that for source of income, it depends on your local jurisdiction whether or not there is an explicit um prohibition against source of income discrimination.
• 9:50
  Speaker: But even without that explicit prohibition, there may there may still be uh a disparate impact um when you look at a no voucher policy.
• 10:00
  Speaker: You know, voucher holders are disproportionately people with disabilities, women, families with children, and people of color.
• 10:10
  Speaker: So any no voucher policy is going to disproportionately impact those groups.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I think that that's something people don't always think about too in that conversation when you're talking to a housing provider.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I I often hear it it's the red tape that comes along with the program that is honestly the challenge for some of the landlords or housing providers that that would otherwise participate in that program.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: But but what are the kind of the ripple effect of the no voucher ad?
• 10:45
  Speaker: Yeah, well, a couple of things there.
• 10:47
  Speaker: Um we so NAR actually does not have an official position on source of income at the federal level, but we are very supportive of the voucher program.
• 10:59
  Speaker: Yeah, and we work a lot with HUD to talk to them about how we can fix these administrative struggles to get rid of some of this red tape, to make things move faster so that a voucher holder can be more just like a regular tenant.
• 11:14
  Speaker: And I was doing a little bit of research and I saw that the Cleveland and Akron Housing Authorities are trying to shorten their inspection schedules and accelerate their processing times.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Uh Cleveland, Cuyahoga uh metro housing has a separate program, I believe that's still functioning, but kind of a pilot program that they were working on where there was a specific person on staff that was working with the property owners and they were turning inspections in less than two weeks.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Whereas the typical process for CMHA, we were hearing 90 days or more.
• 11:54
  Speaker: I mean, and that's just not that's that's not sustainable for Yeah, that makes it different from another protected class because you're not treating them just like any other tenant.
• 12:04
  Speaker: You have to hold your unit open and lose potentially lose three months of rent.
• 12:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:08
  Speaker: So HUD is aware of that, and you know, we keep pushing them to encourage local PHAs to do what they can to make this process more efficient so that it can just be smoother.
• 12:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker: Um, but in terms of working with voucher holders, just a couple of points.
• 12:27
  Speaker: Um, you can still screen a voucher holder the same way you would screen any other tenant.
• 12:32
  Speaker: So it it that source of income law doesn't mean you can't deny them, it just means you can't deny them because they have a voucher.
• 12:39
  Speaker: If you have some other reason to deny them, you still can.
• 12:42
  Speaker: Um, you can also ch charge them a security deposit.
• 12:47
  Speaker: Um, but remember when you're qualifying them that the amount of the voucher needs to count towards their income calculation.
• 12:56
  Speaker: And also, of course, you don't want to have any extra fees, higher deposits, or different documentation demands.
• 13:03
  Speaker: Now you're not treating them like any other customer.
• 13:07
  Speaker: But I think that's what we're aiming towards.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And I I think too, for our listeners, it was good to hear NAR's position on source of income.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And ACAR's is very similar.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So we're very supportive of the housing voucher program, but we believe it should remain a voluntary program and not be mandated.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's our position too.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Um, so so keeping it local, uh, and you you hinted at this a little bit, criminal background screening is becoming an increasingly discussed fair housing issue in both the Cleveland area and in Akron, particularly given its potential uh impact on black and Latino applicants.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Um, a recent report by the Fair Housing Center reported that one out of eight complaints uh were based on criminal record, and that's coming from potential tenants.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: So, so where is the line between legitimate screening, which we were talking a little bit about with source of income, and a discriminatory practice?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: What should our realtors and housing providers be thinking about when criminal history is a part of the housing decision and whether they would rent to somebody?
• 14:20
  Speaker: Yeah, and you know, I get mixed up.
• 14:21
  Speaker: I mentioned that one of eight number in the previous question, so just pretend I didn't say that then.
• 14:27
  Speaker: Um so yeah, um, the disparate impact framework requires that the rule in question, so here we're talking about a criminal screening rule, right?
• 14:39
  Speaker: be tied to a legitimate business objective and that there is no less discriminator discriminatory alternative to achieve that objective.
• 14:47
  Speaker: So we talked about this a little bit with the safety screening.
• 14:50
  Speaker: It's the same idea.
• 14:51
  Speaker: You want your screening to be narrowly tailored to actual risks that this per that this tenant might present to people and property and their ability to pay.
• 15:02
  Speaker: So something like arson, that that would be a relevant conviction.
• 15:08
  Speaker: Um, fraud, violent crime.
• 15:10
  Speaker: I mean, these are things where you can see a tighter nexus um to, you know, you have a reason for not wanting that person in your building.
• 15:20
  Speaker: But you know, obviously speeding, right, jaywalking, maybe a little bit of shoplifting 20 years ago.
• 15:26
  Speaker: Um, you need to think about um both the nature and the severity of the offense as well as how long ago did it happen.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Lots to consider.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: There, if you're in the housing provider realm, I would imagine you need to have a good attorney who can kind of break down what those local laws are.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And I think that's also important to note too cities have very different ordinances on top of whatever's in the state and whatever is on top of that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: We're getting at the national level.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: So much information to balance that.
• 16:03
  Speaker: But disparate impact applies regardless, right?
• 16:06
  Speaker: So, really, you need to have these narrowly tailored um policies in place, whether you have a local ordinance or not.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And be consistent.
• 16:16
  Speaker: Yes.
• 16:16
  Speaker: Again, yes, you don't want to just screen some people or and not screen other people, or maybe you see well, one person has a shoplifting conviction, but they seem okay.
• 16:26
  Speaker: This other person with a shoplifting conviction, uh, I don't know.
• 16:30
  Speaker: You know, we have to be sure that we're consistent each time.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I think um this is something too that our listeners are going to be hearing a lot more about.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: The city of Akron is gonna have two different charter amendments uh on the ballot in November.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: One would add criminal history as a protected class to the fair housing, local fair housing um regulations, and then the other it gets it something you talked about a little bit, but security deposits and are they required full payment upfront?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: The charter amendment would requ require landlords to accept them either full payment or over three or six months.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Um and there are a number of other uh tenant protections that are gonna be in the news big time in our area over the next couple months.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Um so kind of sticking with the same the same topic here.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: HUD recently issued guidance on crime, schools, and steering.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: What does that guidance mean for realtors?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And how does NAR recommend members provide neighborhood information while remaining fair housing compliant?
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: We're always talking about how our members are community experts, but there's a fine line between providing information and steering.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: How do we kind of keep members on the right side of that?
• 17:57
  Speaker: Yeah, so HUD issued this guidance in May, and they wanted to remind real estate professionals that they can provide information about crime in schools as long as it is provided consistently and without discriminatory intent.
• 18:16
  Speaker: Well, we agree with that, um, but the devil is kind of in the details here.
• 18:22
  Speaker: Um so courts have held that comments about crime in schools can actually be evidence of discriminatory intent because someone it might allow someone to signal the race um uh or national origin of a neighborhood or a school without actually saying it.
• 18:44
  Speaker: So someone might say, Well, you want to avoid that school, but what they're really saying is that's the school where the minorities go.
• 18:52
  Speaker: Um, they don't actually have real information about the quality of that school.
• 18:57
  Speaker: And I have to give an example.
• 18:59
  Speaker: And the Newsday investigation, which everybody needs to watch, had multiple examples of um real estate agents talking about crime in schools.
• 19:10
  Speaker: It was a major section of the Newsday investigation.
• 19:15
  Speaker: And in fact, a number of agents in New York had discipline against their licenses for these comments.
• 19:23
  Speaker: So, in one example, there was a school, and this one just made me sad.
• 19:28
  Speaker: Um, Elmont Memorial High School, which had received the Blue Ribbon School Award from New York State, had super high graduation rate, kids getting regents' diplomas, very high college uh admissions rate.
• 19:42
  Speaker: A couple of real estate agents in that investigation told their clients, don't go to that school.
• 19:48
  Speaker: Did they have any reason?
• 19:51
  Speaker: It seems like, and I well, the only reason that I can think of is that the school was like 97% black and Hispanic.
• 20:01
  Speaker: Um so it's okay to provide objective third-party information, yeah, but what you want to be careful about is language that is actually signaling something else.
• 20:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker: And clients might do the same thing.
• 20:19
  Speaker: They might ask you, so where is the good neighborhood?
• 20:23
  Speaker: And they might be trying to ask you a question about race.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So that that begs the question, because I have heard from our members who will say that exact thing.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: What is the guidance that you would suggest if a realtor is faced with that question from a client?
• 20:42
  Speaker: So let's use good school as an example.
• 20:45
  Speaker: Good means different things to different people.
• 20:48
  Speaker: Yes.
• 20:48
  Speaker: Depending on what your kid needs.
• 20:51
  Speaker: Um a kid might need a special education program.
• 20:56
  Speaker: Um, your child might want, you know, maybe you really want a strong music program or a strong band program.
• 21:03
  Speaker: Um just having a school with the highest test scores actually doesn't tell you that much about the quality of the teaching in the school.
• 21:11
  Speaker: It tells you more about the income of the parents of the kids in that school.
• 21:16
  Speaker: So if someone asks for a good school, I would ask them, well, what specifically does that mean to you?
• 21:22
  Speaker: Um and try to understand, are they asking me about race or is there something specifically that we're looking for?
• 21:31
  Speaker: And then have that third-party objective information on hand to either give them yourself or refer them to the school district, to a website.
• 21:41
  Speaker: There's tons of information about schools online.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, earlier this year we had um one of our realtor days, uh, the superintendent from that particular school district was there.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And anytime we hear that or we go to a state of the city or a state of the schools address, the superintendent Is is kind of over the top with if if if you have clients who have questions about our district, just reach out.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: We are so happy to talk.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We've got information we can share with you about the programs that we offer.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And then your clients have the best information from the source.
• 22:18
  Speaker: That that's excellent.
• 22:19
  Speaker: You know, there was a local association in California that we wrote a made a video about, wrote a story about, where um the the members were all telling their clients to avoid the public schools.
• 22:33
  Speaker: Like oh gosh.
• 22:34
  Speaker: And the city had changed over 30 years.
• 22:37
  Speaker: They'd made a lot of investment in the public schools and they'd gotten a lot better.
• 22:40
  Speaker: So the school district actually reached out to the Realtor Association and said, Can we talk?
• 22:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker: And then they got together with a local educational foundation.
• 22:50
  Speaker: They brought the realtors into the school, the superintendent came out, and then they could start correcting that perception, which was associated with the demographics of the school district.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: This is making me think years ago we used to do a superintendent's day where we would invite some of our different schools to just do a quick 10 to 15 minute presentation.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: We tried to jam as many as we could into a short amount of time, but it might be time to think about bringing that back.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Um, okay, so we've got a couple more questions I wanted to get to.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So the next one, this is a is a topic that I think anytime I'm in a room where landlord tenant law is being discussed, emotional support animals comes up 95% of the time, it seems.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So HUD also recently updated its guidance on assistance and emotional support animals, which are not the same.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Um, what's changed?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: What what do we need to know about?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And um are there any legal concerns perhaps that that folks should be keeping in mind?
• 24:01
  Speaker: Yeah, so right, there's two different kinds of animals that we're talking about here.
• 24:06
  Speaker: There are service animals, which is typically a dog, um, but there are some other animals too that have been trained to perform specific tasks.
• 24:16
  Speaker: And it's really pretty cool what some of these dogs can do.
• 24:19
  Speaker: They can like detect if someone's about to have a seizure and make tell them to go sit down.
• 24:24
  Speaker: Um, so HUD is saying, and then the other type is the emotional support animal where it hasn't been trained, but it just provides comfort and emotional support um to the to that person, and they they are supposed to have documentation from a therapist or another professional.
• 24:42
  Speaker: Um, and and I know there's a real problem with with fake um with fake documentation.
• 24:49
  Speaker: Um, so HUD has announced that um they are no longer going to accept complaints related to the emotional support animals.
• 24:59
  Speaker: Um they are only gonna accept complaints if a tenant says I was denied my service animal.
• 25:05
  Speaker: So that's the definition from the ADA.
• 25:08
  Speaker: HUD has said, we're gonna drop this traditional Fair Housing Act interpretation of animals, and we're gonna switch over to the ADA, which is much lower.
• 25:18
  Speaker: Because remember, ADA is about what people can have in a public place and not their own home.
• 25:26
  Speaker: Um, so of course, you're gonna have more restrictions on what people can bring into a public place versus what they want in their home, um, where you hopefully they're feeling safe and comforted and all those good things.
• 25:37
  Speaker: Um so that's HUD's um enforcement posture.
• 25:42
  Speaker: They're not gonna take these cases, but the underlying law hasn't changed.
• 25:46
  Speaker: Courts still uh acknowledge that emotional support animals are included under the Fair Housing Act.
• 25:53
  Speaker: I looked in the Ohio Civil Rights Commission has his historically recognized emotional support animals as reasonable accommodations, don't have to be trained.
• 26:03
  Speaker: Um, so for me, the practical takeaway is um keep doing what you've always been doing.
• 26:11
  Speaker: Because even if HUD isn't taking the complaint, um, a private litigant can file a complaint, a fair housing center can file a complaint, your state agency can open up a complaint.
• 26:22
  Speaker: So it's probably not um a good idea to change your your policies based on this recent guidance.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: That is some very good intel to have, and hopefully the folks that are listening are taking note of that.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Um so we're getting to the end here.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, beyond education, which we know is so important to any real estate licensee, but certainly it's something that's super important uh to realtors.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: What can local realtor associations like ACAR, like um some of our other multicultural real estate organizations that are in the area, uh what are some things you know that you think we could be doing to further advance spare housing and expand homeownership opportunities in all of our communities?
• 27:12
  Speaker: Yeah, well, education is super important, and everybody take Fair Haven and Bias override if you haven't already.
• 27:18
  Speaker: Those are spectacular, by the way.
• 27:20
  Speaker: Um it's necessary but not sufficient.
• 27:23
  Speaker: Um so what more can we do?
• 27:26
  Speaker: Well, I want to open by by coming back to housing supply and affordability.
• 27:30
  Speaker: This is the topic right now.
• 27:33
  Speaker: I mean, it doesn't really matter how much fair housing enforcement you have or anything else, if there just simply aren't homes available that people can afford.
• 27:42
  Speaker: Um, so NAR really led the effort in Washington to pass um the 21st century Road to Housing Act, which was just enacted last month, and it was a long and dramatic saga, but we got that bill over the finish line, and it has some 100 provisions.
• 28:01
  Speaker: And so now we're coming into the implementation phase.
• 28:04
  Speaker: Passing the bill, okay, you've got a law on the books, but now we've got to make it happen.
• 28:08
  Speaker: Um, and a lot of that happens at the local level, turning these federal tools into zoning changes, faster permits, financing options, and other ways that can help build more homes and especially starter homes that people can afford.
• 28:24
  Speaker: So NAR is gonna continue providing resources about implementation of this law and to help state and local associations get involved.
• 28:35
  Speaker: But I just have to give a shout out to ACAR and you, Jamie, for the work that you're already doing to boost housing supply and affordability in Ohio.
• 28:47
  Speaker: So I know you've supported uh infill housing in the in the Cleveland suburbs, um a unified zoning code project with the Cuyahoga Planning Commission that communities can adopt this uniform zoning code and then it's much more predictable for builders and convening with uh elected officials to help sure they're aware of our views on affordability.
• 29:10
  Speaker: Is there anything else you want to add, Jamie?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there's so much thank you first for that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Um, yes, so you are a hundred percent right.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: We polled our members at the beginning of the year, and no matter how we ask the question, and the listeners have probably heard me say this before, but housing affordability uh and attainability were at the top of the list.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And so we are just over the moon that it feels like to me, for the first time in a long time, all of the housing real estate organizations are kind of rowing in the same direction.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: We all recognize that there's this need, and we're all coming together and getting creative, I think, in ways to really address things like invil housing and how do we get the supply up so that when we look at numbers and the most affordable homes are the ones where the least option is available, like how do we address that?
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And so I'm hopeful that the changes that our communities uh are making now and that we're happy to support and be at the table in those conversations will make a difference.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Change is never as fast as you want it to be, but I think our our communities are positioning themselves very well, I think, for uh sustainable housing growth over the coming years.
• 30:31
  Speaker: Well, we we definitely need it because we're about four to five million units short nationwide, according to NAR data.
• 30:40
  Speaker: Um and the age of the first-time home buyer is now 40 years old.
• 30:44
  Speaker: That's the oldest since we started collecting the data, and that's all related to the supply issue.
• 30:52
  Speaker: And as Jessica Lautz from our research team says, you're now starting to see this tale of two markets where repeat buyers who have equity who can trade up, they can make a big down payment, they can pay with cash, yeah, they're doing okay.
• 31:05
  Speaker: But those first-time buyers who are trying to break into the market, who are also disproportionately people of color, um, they are facing these affordability hurdles that people a generation ago didn't have to deal with.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: You are so so correct.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I just a week or so ago had one of our um elected officials staffers re she reached out and was inquiring for some data on just that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And so I was able to get some of that information from NAR.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Dr.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Yun and Dr.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Lautz and the entire research team for having that stuff available to show in the Akron.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: This particular question was the Akron MSA, so the Akron metro area.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Um, the biggest supply need was in those homes that are priced between $100,000 and $250,000.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of the work that we're doing right now and some of the things that the city of Akron is doing, um, with some changes that are coming on their zoning side of things will help, hopefully, I think it will, uh, help address that shortage and hopefully we'll have a lot more quote unquote affordable options, whatever that means to you.
• 32:24
  Speaker: So getting beyond the housing supply issue, right?
• 32:27
  Speaker: Because I think that's that's the threshold issue.
• 32:30
  Speaker: Um, but there's a lot of other issues.
• 32:33
  Speaker: Um so uh a few more recommendations of of things we can do on the local level to advance fair housing.
• 32:40
  Speaker: Um create a partnership with your local fair housing center.
• 32:44
  Speaker: So not just inviting them to speak at your events, but you know, uh an ongoing collaboration, you know, to help develop your advocacy agenda, um, to weigh in on, you know, to get their take on the things that you're planning.
• 32:59
  Speaker: I think we've seen um um some local fair housing organizations enter into MOUs with realtor organizations.
• 33:08
  Speaker: Um that you could also partner with a local housing counseling agency and maybe one that really specializes in providing services in other languages.
• 33:20
  Speaker: Um, of course, we've all got to make sure that we are aware of our local down payment assistance and other buyer programs.
• 33:29
  Speaker: We can also advocate for more down payment assistance.
• 33:33
  Speaker: Hey, how about if we create our own down payment assistance program?
• 33:36
  Speaker: Some associations have done it, I'm just saying.
• 33:39
  Speaker: Um, again, I have to give you a shout out, Jamie, because you're doing the demystifying home buying process campaign.
• 33:46
  Speaker: Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad that Kelli's in the room for this too, because really she and I work our two departments, advocacy and communications, and you know this from NAR too, like we have to work hand in hand.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a way to get the message out, you know, then you're just spinning your wheels.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: So um our demystifying the home buying process, I I swear these things sometimes just come up when we're having a normal conversation over, you know, coffee or whatever in the morning.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Um, but we have a number of resources available to consumers and for our members to share with their clients that kind of break down the home buying process into um maybe nuggets that aren't as, I think, overwhelming as when you finally sit down and are ready to go through that process.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Um, and so when we're demystifying the home buying process, we're doing a lot of myth busting.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So uh over the summer, we've had a number of billboards up throughout our region, um, you know, addressing things like credit score, down payment assistance.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Um gosh, there are so many different messages that we've done.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: When's the right time to buy a home?
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Why use a realtor?
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of these things.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And so we've had these billboards, we also had uh some short form video hitting social media, also addressing those very same topics and driving everybody to ACAR's consumer page, homeforallneo.com, uh, where we have a resource guide that has all the local down payment assistance programs that cities are offering, where we have a home buyer guidebook that you can use with your realtor.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It's got different cheat sheets and kind of um worksheets to help you when you're putting a budget together and what can you afford?
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: What are your must-haves in your home or in your community?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Um, just to really kind of help you navigate what can be a very stressful process.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's typically the biggest expense of your life.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: And so uh we're doing a lot of that stuff to just kind of break through that wall.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: We know right now the media really is heavily focused on, and we talk about it too, affordability, rising home prices is now the right time to buy.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: If it's the right time for you to buy, it's the right time to buy.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And so we want to make sure the public is aware of programs and resources that are out there for them to tap into if they need them or so choose.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And those last two pieces that you mentioned, the guidebook for homebuyers and the resource guide, are both available on our consumer page of our website, and they're both available in English and Spanish.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: So we're moving, hopefully, maybe maybe in 2027, we're actually going to embrace a couple more popular languages for our area.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: We'll see how that goes.
• 36:49
  Speaker: That's great, you know, and I think this shows that the really crucial role that realtors have to play, you know, in kind of a 360-degree way.
• 37:00
  Speaker: I mean, we're serving our clients, um, we're we're we're introducing them to these programs, right?
• 37:06
  Speaker: But then we're advocating to um government, to the government at all levels, yes, um, about what our clients are going through.
• 37:14
  Speaker: Um, we're also conveners.
• 37:16
  Speaker: We know everybody, we know the home builders, you know, we bring together the multicultural group, you know.
• 37:22
  Speaker: And so I think we have a very special part to play here with all of these strengths that we bring.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I love that you said that.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I had a conversation with a group of economic development directors from a handful of our cities, and and that was something that they all said.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: The realtors are in a very unique position to where you're almost like an umbrella because you work with so many different pieces and parts and can bring everybody together.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So I love hearing you say that because it just kind of reaffirms you know what we were thinking as we're looking at our own local advocacy and how do we really have a bigger impact than you know, even what we're doing now.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Any final thoughts on this?
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: This is such a a great conversation.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I feel like we could talk for hours about the ins and outs of fair housing and we don't have hours.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: We don't, sadly.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Um but are there any final thoughts that you you would just share on?
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've been in this position for quite some time, and how are things changing, evolving?
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: What do you think's next for fair housing?
• 38:29
  Speaker: Well, we're we're seeing some retrenchment at the federal level in terms of fair housing and fair lending enforcement.
• 38:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker: Um, we're also, you know, facing this really tough market.
• 38:40
  Speaker: So we have serious headwinds right now for expanding home ownership.
• 38:46
  Speaker: Um, but I think throughout this discussion, we've shown that there is still so much that we can do.
• 38:52
  Speaker: Uh, and so that's that's what I would encourage people to do is you know, find that thing that you're interested in that lights your fire and and go get involved in that so we can get more people into homes.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if I could say it any better than that.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I Alexia, I truly appreciate you coming in today for this podcast to share this information with us.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: There's so much more that that we could certainly talk about.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: If our members want to find you, um is there a place on NAR's website where they should look for more information on fair housing or somebody on your team?
• 39:30
  Speaker: Well, yes, we have a whole fair housing landing page with all kinds of information and we're rolling out some new resources that I'm excited about.
• 39:39
  Speaker: We're gonna be updating our fair housing handbook.
• 39:42
  Speaker: We're also gonna be creating a new fair housing central with like bite-sized nuggets of fair housing information because we know people want those videos and that short digestible content.
• 39:53
  Speaker: Um, so if you just go to NAR.realtor slash fair housing, you'll find us.
• 39:58
  Speaker: You can also search for my name on the website and you'll find my email address.
• 40:02
  Speaker: And you know, I welcome anybody reaching out.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you again, Alexia.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: This has been very enlightening.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your time and your your insight.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Um, Kelli, I feel like we've got so many more things to do now.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Every time we do a podcast, I Kelli and I feel like we've got so many more things.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna turn it back over to you before we give ourselves any more work.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I, you know, honestly, I don't know that I could possibly add anything after that exchange of stuff.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Although I did make a list, so you know, yeah, buckle up.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Um I have a lot of ideas for for for for other episodes that will be upcoming.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: So all the more important to tune back in.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Uh, that is a wrap for today.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Uh, if you loved what you heard, please do us a favor and subscribe, share it with a colleague, and share it on your socials.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: If and we ask that you tag ACAR when you do that.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: We love when you engage with us on social media.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: So until next time, uh just know that we appreciate you and hope that everyone out there has a fantastic day.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: And until we meet again, I hope you're finding your very own meaning of home for all.