Anyone here ever lived in Vegas?
I'm missing something here, how does the "real estate industry"
consipre to screw people (buyers) into paying inflated prices. Unless
I'm mistaken, real estate companies/agents are just facilitators and
don't have any responsibility for setting the price of a property.
Furthermore, I don't see how they can make a buyer pay more for
something than they're willing to pay. The sales price of a house is
only as much as someone is willing to pay. And, what about a FSBO (for
sale by owner)? Or, are those sellers too a part of the conspiracy? I
see it as the market at work = supply & demand.
It wasn't just real estate agents implicated in red-lining. Banks,
insurance companies, and other mortgage lenders wouldn't even send an
appraiser out to red-lined districts. No mortgage, no sale, unless the
sellers would finance the sale themselves. In other cases, mortgages,
even if available, were at higher interest rates. As recently as the
early and middle 'seventies Franklin S&L seemed to be the only lender
willing to do business on properties in Hyde Park, Fairview Park,
Clarksville, and Travis Heights, and then only for its depositors.
Red-lining was not peculiar to Austin or to Texas.