Racial Steering in Urban Housing Markets: A Review of the Audit Evidence

Abstract

A secondary analysis of thirty-six fair housing audits conducted between 1974 and 1987 reveals that racial steering has been a widespread, consequential phenomenon in many urban housing markets during the last decade. It is difficult from extant work to assess precisely its incidence nationally in the home sales sector because sites reporting such data have had atypically active fair housing enforcement efforts. It appears, however, that selective commentary by agents has been practiced as much if not more than differential patterns of home-showings. The consequence of this steering rarely has been to limit the number or concentration of geographic alternatives available to black auditors. Nor have all their options in predominantly white communities typically been precluded. Rather, steering in the sales sector most often has constituted a failure to show white auditors options in areas (and school districts) with nontrivial proportions of minority residents, and a propensity to show black auditors disproportionate numbers of homes in areas currently possessing or expected to possess significant proportions of minority residents. Limited evidence suggests that steering has occurred often in the rental apartment sector, although its consequences have yet to be ascertained in a systematic fashion. Implications of the findings for racial stability in neighborhoods and for fair housing policy are discussed.