Only one week after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed The Fair Housing Act of 1968. The bill prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing nationwide. Just seven years earlier in 1961, Black Americans were allowed to join the National Association of Realtors and use the industry group’s professional designation. But before there were Black Realtors, there were Realtists.
Realtists are members of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, a group with its own standards and code of ethics that was formed for Black real estate agents. The organization launched a Dallas chapter in 1956.
“We were Realtists before we became Realtors,” said Stephen Lewis, president of the Dallas chapter of NAREB, also known as the Dallas Association of Realtists. “Black professionals weren’t able to join before that.”
Before The Fair Housing Act
Founded in 1947, NAREB is the oldest minority professional trade association in America. NAREB was created to secure rights to equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or color, years before the Fair Housing Act. Despite its name, the organization includes real estate professionals from multiple disciplines such as mortgage executives and appraisers within the industry. The group’s efforts include legislative activities to establish fair housing practices for all and informative learning sessions.
NAREB Dallas Chapter’s focus is to offer networking events and educational opportunities each year. One of the group’s major goals is to educate its members on how best to help underserved communities and to inform sellers, homebuyers, tenants, and community organizations on the nuances of homeownership.
During Black History Month, members of NAREB’s Dallas chapter will make that point with yard signs proclaiming, “Home Equity Matters.” Look for them popping in yards during February throughout Dallas.
“We want people to understand the importance of equity and what it can do for generational wealth,” Lewis, now in his second term as president of the Dallas NAREB chapter and an associate with Ink Realty.
Advocacy For Black Homeownership
The yard signs are part of the educational process and also have resulted in additional support. Advocacy comes from across north Texas.
“We always partner with the Dallas chapter,” said Janet Kane, CEO of MetroTex Association of Realtors, who herself owns one of the yard signs. “We make sure we support each other’s events. it’s a great collaboration. Those signs were created to celebrate homeownership for everyone.”
In the U.S., Blacks comprise 13 percent of the population, yet only 40 percent of Black households are homeowners, Lewis said. Homeownership rates for whites, he said, sit at around 70 percent. “We work with our kind to help them understand the value of homeownership and its importance in creating generational wealth,” he added
Lewis is following in the footsteps of his father, Paul Lewis, another Realtist and a past president of the Dallas Association of Realtists. He’s worked in real estate since 1984 and now works for Texas Investors Realty and owns PC Peak Development. In his career, he has seen changes.
“As a Realtist, we’re now able to basically live in any neighborhood that we desire,” the elder Lewis said. “That’s certainly one of the benefits of how things have changed.”
Other things have not changed as he would like. Redlining and discriminatory tactics used in real estate still exist, although it’s much more subtle, Paul said. Appraisals coming in extraordinarily low are one example of how the practice exists. “Of course, that economically restrains us,” he said.
Realtists Fight Discrimination
If you want to take a role in improving homeownership rates and housing equity in the Black community, joining an organization that actively fights discrimination such as NAREB is one tactic. The Dallas chapter of NAREB meets monthly at 8:30 a.m. on the third Friday at Luby’s, 5600 S. Hampton in Dallas. To mark Black History Month, the group will hear Harold Carter, owner of Harold Carter Realtors, speak on the history of Dallas as it relates to Black America.
