Real Estate Professionals move in a fast-paced market and respond to the needs of owners, buyers, and renters alike. Providing excellent customer service to all your clients while staying on top of a competitive real estate market can be difficult. Below are several tips from our partners at Suffolk University Law School* to ensure that a busy day does not become a fair housing issue.
- Establish a master checklist that you can adapt to each property you handle.
- Have a template email or other correspondence. That way you can make sure that you are telling everyone the same information every time.
- Make sure every applicant is asked for the same information. Asking for references, credit checks, or criminal background checks is completely legal – as long as everyone is asked the same questions, not just certain groups of people. Having a checklist with these questions will ensure you are being consistent.
- Consider keeping a call log for every property. That way you can make sure that everyone is receiving the same customer service and the same timely response to their inquiries.
- Be prepared. If an owner asks for you to put discriminatory language in a listing, or asks you to engage in a discriminatory practice, remember it is your responsibility to know the law and your license is on the line. You are liable for carrying out your client’s request to discriminate. Have information such as this webpage at your fingertips so you can educate the owner on the relevant issues and rules. Be ready to inform the owner of everyone’s fair housing rights and responsibilities. Encourage your clients to develop criteria for evaluating prospective tenants and to apply the same criteria equally to all those interested in renting.
- Engage in self-reflection. Everyone possesses assumptions and biases. When we are at our busiest, those assumptions act like shortcuts to save us time and brainpower. However, these assumptions are often implicit biases that can impact the way we treat people and even expose us to legal liability.