Facebook Sued for Providing Advertising Tools That Violate the Fair Housing Act

[theBrownLlama]

The problem is that legally you can't discriminate against who you are renting to. Part of that is lying to people about what you have for rent or steering them away from renting. So for example lets say I have 3 buildings I rent units from. Maybe I don't like something about you (race, age, gender) and instead of letting you rent in the building you asked about I instead offer you a unit in some other place where I want to put people like you. I can't do that. You also need to be careful when you say exclusive, exclusive to whom? That is the entire point of the law. You can't make a building exclusive for any biased reason that not everyone has a equal chance to quality for. Price is fine, if you can't afford it you can't rent it. Normally background checks coming back with certain criminal backgrounds, history of failure to pay, bad references,... is good enough however one person above appears to have found the one judge that doesn't think those should be allowed in his city. That is because a black single woman can have a good job and be able to pass all those and get the place to rent, so could a Muslim family, a gay couple... So you are not preventing a certain group from applying. Hiding yourself from gay couples, or out right saying no gay people allowed in the building means that gay couples can't rent from you and that you are preventing them from doing so.

In this case, they are viewing it as not being equal for everyone to rent the places. If you refuse to show your ad to people of a certain type you are not giving them equal access to the knowledge that you have a unit for rent. Or maybe I just show your type the shitty place so that you only know about that location and leave my nice place for white, married, heterosexual families. If you start to single out people of a certain group that means that you don't want them in your place otherwise you would show your ad to everyone. it is one thing to now want to show your high end apartments to people that work at Wendy's but another when you say you don't want this skin color to have knowledge about it, or this nationality. At that point you are trying to hide it from them to hopefully keep those people out of your place. They aren't using valid filters, they are using ones for discriminatory groups. This is different from airing at a certain time on a certain channel or being in a certain publication. Everyone that has a certain station sees the commercials so you aren't preventing anyone from seeing that as long as they have access to that station. Same goes for articles, anyone can read a magazine or news paper. So in those examples you aren't hiding from a single group of people.

well, you see, it is not discriminating on the wishes of the owners.

it is showing you ads which fits your demographic and location ( the whole idea of targeted ads, and one of the selling point of VPNs. )

i seriously doubt that the US government or any judge would come to the conclusion that targeted ads should be banned for real estate. The metric used is not a straightforward whether you are middle income or not. It can be and is now being deduced whether you patronize golfing websites often or not, or whether your favorite list of books on Goodreads is about corporate management, or did you just travel to Monaco and stayed at Hilton, or are you using street slang in your search terms.

and in the overall context of things, there are alot of politics involved in this administration.

 

[Dekoth-E-]

Does insurance eat into profits at all?

Does it cover loss of rent when fixing a trashed house?

I mean anything technically eats into profits, it is up to you to set a proper rent and ensure it covers everything. You need to make sure you have the right kind of insurance that not only covers damages, but also what is referred to as loss of income. The security deposit should be somewhere in the neighborhood of covering the deductible.

So as an example let's say you were renting a house that still had a mortgage on it and you wanted to know how much rent should be.

Mortgage and taxes - $1000/mo
Insurance - $250/mo
Deductible - $1500

So your rent needs to be a minimum of $1250/mo with a security deposit of $1500 just to cover your expenses. That is a break even and obviously it needs to be a little higher to cover things like maintenance and such. The big thing most people don't realize with rentals is you are in general Never going to make profit while the house is still mortgaged. The house absolutely has to be completely paid off before you begin profiting as most of the profits while mortgaged will end up back in maintenance costs. Further you need to ensure that your insurance not only covers the usual fire/flood/accidental damage but that it also is a policy written to account for loss of income as well. So if a property is damaged to the point where it needs a month+ of repairs it will cover at least that mortgage cost or usually 75% of it. Now in my example again just pure numbers here, the optimal rent would be around $1400-$1500/mo. Assuming a 1 year lease and the tenants trashed the place you have $3000 to work with at the end of the year. So If the property is out of commission for a few months and assuming the typical 75% coverage you owe $750 out of that $3000 to cover what the insurance did not, probably at least that in regular maintenance throughout that year leaving you around $1500 banked. That isn't much, but it isn't nothing either when you consider that you have a property that is being paid for completely. Keep throwing that money into a high yield savings account at minimum and your personal risk disappears pretty quickly. Now there are areas you can make more than that, but there are areas where you cannot even break even. If you are in an area you cannot break even, honestly you are better served selling the property and investing in another property in a better area. Managing crappy no profit properties isn't worth it financially speaking as the kind of renters you are going to attract are the kind this thread is about and the kind that are going to trash your property every single damn time. Really being a landlord is a pretty sound financial investment as you have one of the most sound investments (Real estate) being paid for by other people for you. However you have to know who to rent too and when a property is no longer worth keeping.

 

[Joust]

I've dealt first hand with rental properties for years. Look I'm just going to be blunt. There are in fact certain demographics that have a disproportionately higher percentage chance of being terrible tenants and trashing the place. This no matter how much you want to cry discrimination is just a flat fact. That said there is a fairly easy way to discriminate without breaking any laws in this case. Higher rent or drastically higher security deposits do a fantastic job of discouraging those people from applying.

It's more like screening, and less like discrimination, don't you think?

 

[kju1]

What do you expect? Look at the environment that is Baltimore. I'd have to be very, very anchored to stay there. It's possible, but...not on my top 100 list.

I don't live in Baltimore and I am selling off my assets there to try to start again in a new, better, area. But its rough.

Shit like this is why I got the hell out of Maryland.

Amen! I look forward to the day when I am no longer stuck in MD.

This guy probably did this for a living. I worked at a place where a girl sued for sexual harassment. It turned out that her mom had won 4 or 5 settlements already in recent years and one currently at that time. Apparently prior settlement information was not admissible in court, so every time looked like the firat. Her mom figured out the formula and was passing it down.

Hmm good point...going to have the lawyer do some looking into that. Not sure if prior claims are inadmissible here or not.

You just have the proper insurance. There is only real risk if you are a Scumlord and rent out shit property to shit renters and have shit for insurance. Have a decent place to rent, rent at a proper rate that includes insurance to cover it in case a dipshit gets through and don't worry about it.

I did my last place up real nice, charged fair market rent and paid a professional company to screen the tenants (former military, good credit). Didnt help. They stopped paying rent 2 months in and it took several months to get them out. All while they shit on the floors instead of in the toilets and pulled wires and pipes out of the walls. Turns out they developed a major drug addiction after getting out...which I found out about when the police knocked in the door to my rental. Couldnt touch it for 2 months while the police "investigated" - and because the door was busted in squatters moved in. Smart ones that knew to look up which business owned the property and faked a lease. Took 4 months to get them out after I had to hire an expert handwriting witness to show that squiggly line wasnt my signature and they had no right to be there. Court awarded me $0 in damages because the Judge said I couldnt rent the place in that condition anyway....

Insurance denied my claim because they said I couldnt prove which one did the damage...the squatters (which wasnt covered) or the tenants. They did say the door was covered but it was below my deductible.

Baltimore is a shit hole. Plain and simple. Moral of the story: location location anywhere but baltimore.

Does insurance eat into profits at all?

Does it cover loss of rent when fixing a trashed house?

Yes it eats into profits. Mine does not cover loss of rental income when fixing a trashed house. I am now requiring tenants to purchase rental guarantee insurance.

 

[Dekoth-E-]

It's more like screening, and less like discrimination, don't you think?

In my eyes it isn't discrimination at all. It is as you state, screening and knowing your target demographic.

I don't live in Baltimore and I am selling off my assets there to try to start again in a new, better, area. But its rough.



Amen! I look forward to the day when I am no longer stuck in MD.



Hmm good point...going to have the lawyer do some looking into that. Not sure if prior claims are inadmissible here or not.



I did my last place up real nice, charged fair market rent and paid a professional company to screen the tenants (former military, good credit). Didnt help. They stopped paying rent 2 months in and it took several months to get them out. All while they shit on the floors instead of in the toilets and pulled wires and pipes out of the walls. Turns out they developed a major drug addiction after getting out...which I found out about when the police knocked in the door to my rental. Couldnt touch it for 2 months while the police "investigated" - and because the door was busted in squatters moved in. Smart ones that knew to look up which business owned the property and faked a lease. Took 4 months to get them out after I had to hire an expert handwriting witness to show that squiggly line wasnt my signature and they had no right to be there. Court awarded me $0 in damages because the Judge said I couldnt rent the place in that condition anyway....

Insurance denied my claim because they said I couldnt prove which one did the damage...the squatters (which wasnt covered) or the tenants. They did say the door was covered but it was below my deductible.

Baltimore is a shit hole. Plain and simple. Moral of the story: location location anywhere but baltimore.



Yes it eats into profits. Mine does not cover loss of rental income when fixing a trashed house. I am now requiring tenants to purchase rental guarantee insurance.

As with any business, there are exceptions unfortunately.

 

[Xrave]

I did my last place up real nice, charged fair market rent and paid a professional company to screen the tenants (former military, good credit). Didnt help. They stopped paying rent 2 months in and it took several months to get them out. All while they shit on the floors instead of in the toilets and pulled wires and pipes out of the walls. Turns out they developed a major drug addiction after getting out...which I found out about when the police knocked in the door to my rental. Couldnt touch it for 2 months while the police "investigated" - and because the door was busted in squatters moved in. Smart ones that knew to look up which business owned the property and faked a lease. Took 4 months to get them out after I had to hire an expert handwriting witness to show that squiggly line wasnt my signature and they had no right to be there. Court awarded me $0 in damages because the Judge said I couldnt rent the place in that condition anyway....

Insurance denied my claim because they said I couldnt prove which one did the damage...the squatters (which wasnt covered) or the tenants. They did say the door was covered but it was below my deductible.

Baltimore is a shit hole. Plain and simple. Moral of the story: location location anywhere but baltimore.

Jesus

Makes me feel lucky I landlord in Silicon Valley...basically affording the rent here means you are a stable human being.

 

[Dekoth-E-]

Jesus

Makes me feel lucky I landlord in Silicon Valley...basically affording the rent here means you are a stable human being.

I would argue affording rent there makes you extremely well off anywhere else in the country.

 

[Xrave]

I would argue affording rent there makes you extremely well off anywhere else in the country.

True...but here it means you can barely afford a 2 bedroom condo

 

[Dekoth-E-]

True...but here it means you can barely afford a 2 bedroom condo

Two bedroom condo? Woah there, look at Mr moneybags flaunting his condo around everyone! Guys making twice what I make are living out of their cars out there!