If We Are Serious About Racial Equality, We Need to Start in Our Own Neighborhoods

As a real estate brokerage, the company I lead, Redfin, has spent years surveying people about their home-buying preferences. This year’s anonymous survey opened on May 21, and asked homebuyers about moving to a neighborhood where most of the residents are “of a different race, ethnicity or religion than you.” In the first week, 23% of white homebuyers admitted to “some” or “significant” hesitation, which was similar to the 25% of white homebuyers who felt that way in 2019.