South Bend - Mishawaka Board of Realtors, statement of position and principles

Description:	A statement from the South Bend - Mishawaka Board of Realtors concerning open housing and the professional responsibility of realtors. While the Board understands that members of minority, religious, and ethnic groups might wish to purchase housing in any neighborhood they can afford, the Board considers it the professional duty of realtors to honor the instructions of their property sellers to sell or not sell to minorities. In their view, it is the property owner who righfully chooses they type of buyer they are willing to accept. Undated, but likely from the 1960s. Members of the South Bend – Mishawaka Board of Realtors have given thoughtful consideration to the many problems which have arisen incidental to the efforts of minority racial, religious, and ethnic groups for better housing accomodations in the residential real estate market. Since Realtors are the primary market and media, it has seemed appropriate for the Board of Realtors to propose and suggest principles and methods of operation for the guidance of its members in meeting the problems in question. By so doing, it is hoped that a fuller understanding will exist between the Board of Realtors and the general public as to what the role of the Realtor ought to be.The South Bend – Mishawaka Board of Realtors and its members recognize that the aspirations of all people for better private housing accomodations is both legitimate and understandable. It is basic to a fair understanding of the problems involved that all concerned realize that many of our people are not yet prepared to accept all racial, creedal, and ethnic groups as social intimates or as neighbors living in close proximity. This social phenomenon overwhelmingly accounts for the tensions and conflicts arising in the market for private residential housing when buyers who are members of a minority group seek to obtain residential accomodations from reluctant or unwilling sellers. This situation has given rise in recent years to attempts by proponents of open occupancy housing to expand the availability of private housing in favor of minority groups by using various methods upon real estate brokers and private owners of real estate to deal on an open occupancy basis in transactions affecting their properties. The subject of open occupancy housing has tended to become increasingly controversial and, in the heat of controversy, the role of the real estate broker with its contractual rights and responsibilities has been greatly distorted. Believing, therefore, that it is in the interest of all concerned to understand the position of the Board of Realtors and its members as to the role of the broker and his rights and responsibilities with specific reference to the controversial subject of open occupancy, the following statement of position and principles has been adopted.STATEMENT OF POSITION AND PRINCIPLESThe South Bend – Mishawaka Board of Realtors and its members recognize that there is an unmistakable trend toward the co-mingling of racial, creedal, and ethnic groups, in residential neighborhoods, and that it should not be viewed as a sinister social development when it occurs spontaneously in a free market.Realtors, individually and collectively, in performing their agency functions, have no right or responsibility to determine the racial, creedal or ethnic composition of any area or neighborhood.The property owner whom the Realtor represents should have the right to specify in the contract of agency the terms and conditions thereof and, correspondingly, the Realtor should have the right and duty to represent such owner by faithfully observing the terms and conditions of such agency.No Realtor should assume to determine the suitability or eligibility of any prospective mortgagor, tenant or purchaser, and the Realtor, unless otherwise directed or instructed by his client, should invariably submit to the client all offers made by any prospect in connection with the transaction at hand.Upon acceptance by the Realtor’s client of any offer, the Realtor should exert his best efforts to conclude the transaction irrespective of the race, creed or nationality of the offeror.Each Realtor should feel completely free to enter in to a broker-client relationship with persons of any race, creed or ethnic group in accordance with what he conceives to be in his best interests. Realtors recognize that enhanced opportunity for the acquisition of private housing by minority groups must of necessity depend upon the attitudes of private property owners and not upon real estate brokers, who are the marketing media; that the right of property owners to freely determine with whom they will deal is a right fundamental in the American tradition. The real estate broker should not be utilized in his agency function as a means for accomplishing the withdrawal of the right of free decision from the property-owner. The broker fully performs his legal responsibilities when he faithfully engages to find a tenant or purchaser acceptable to his principal.
Origin:	Circa 1960s
Created By:	South Bend - Mishawaka Board of Realtors
Source:	http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16827coll4/id/966
Collection:	Civil Rights and African American History
Copyright:	Materials in Michiana Memory are in the public domain. This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. To purchase copies of the images and/or for copyright information, contact local.history@sjcpl.org
Subjects:	Discrimination in housing--Indiana--South Bend

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