Blockbusting
Definition of "Blockbusting"
Blockbusting is a despicable and illegal racist business practice.
Here’s how Blockbusting happens: a real estate agent, or someone posing as one, comes to a homeowner and instills him (or her) with fear of racial minorities, saying and showing bogus stats that a large number of whatever minority the homeowner prejudicially feared was moving into their neighborhood in large numbers. Because of that, the homeowner would sell the property for a lower market price, and, in turn, the alleged real estate agent would sell at a higher market price to the exact minority the original owner feared.
The practice of blockbusting has been done to White, Black, Jews, and Foreign people, but the most notorious blockbusting practices were done with White and Black, after 1910 when over a million African American from the rural southern states of the United States of America moved north to industrialized cities in need of workers due to the World War I, which recruited many workers to serve in the US Army. The scars of Civil War and Slavery were still open, so profiteers would take advantage of that, and even hire “actors” to create a sense of overwhelming presence of black people in traditionally white neighborhoods.
Blockbusting practices were nationally exposed in the 1960’s with the civil rights movement. Because of it, stricter federal real estate laws were conceived, which made blockbusting harder. For instance: door-to-door real estate solicitation got restricted in several states to avoid blockbusting. The most important measure against blockbusting, however, was 1968’s Fair Housing Act which made (by law) religion, race, and ethnicity of a neighborhood’s inhabitants part of what a real estate agent can’t tell a home buyer client when showing a house.
Work only with credible real estate agents! Find one at The OFFICIAL Real Estate Agent Directory®.
Popular Real Estate Terms
Approach to valuing property based on its replacement cost. The cost of each major element of the property per square foot is added together and multiplied by the total space to estimate ...
Ability of a large group of retail stores or shopping center to take business away from other smaller or more distant shopping stores. ...
Measures looking at the past, current a future direction of the economy. They may have an impact on the real estate market. Each month government bodies, including the Federal Reserve ...
Paneled brickwork between timber quarters, a framed wall, or partition. ...
Legal right or privilege, such as that arising from a contract, to use land owned by another person or business for a specific purpose. The use should be reasonable for the circumstances. ...
A long-term lease of only land. ...
Changing property ownership. An example is the sale of a home to another. ...
unfinished access space below the first floor having less height than a full story. An individual must crawl through the crawl hole to gain access. Any interior passage of limited ...
To depreciate is to lose value for something. Depreciation is the act of losing worth.Connecting with real estate, Property depreciation can be both an accounting method typically used to ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.