How mystery shopping prepared me for housing discrimination
Black homeowners, make sure your mortgage lender treats you humanely
This was originally published on Homegrown Tales on April 10, 2022. To read more posts from my sister Substack publication, join as a founder member!
I almost didn’t buy my home. I was told I couldn’t afford it. I knew I wanted to move out of my condo rental after a terrible experience, but I thought it might be a long shot due to my student loans and car loan. Still, I tried anyway. My money obstacle ended up being neither of those expenses. Instead, my mortgage lender sent a group email saying I was at financial risk due to a Kohl’s credit card balance.
My first thought: “Are you kidding me? I went to two different undergraduate universities, graduated from an HBCU and changed my major three times in grad school, but Kohl’s was what was holding me back from being a homeowner?” I shrugged my shoulders and almost tapped out.
Then my Realtor, a Caribbean woman, shook her head and said to me, “This is not normal. I’m not supposed to know about your department store debt.” As a first-time shopper, I thought it was perfectly normal for the mortgage lender to tell her this. After all, from my brief overview online, everyone involved worked as a team. The seller and the seller’s Realtor were in communication with the buyer and the buyer’s Realtor. The Realtor was in communication with me, my mortgage lender and my real estate attorney. In my mind, we’d be a big, professional, happy family.
Upside and downside of choosing a mortgage lender blindly
I thought it was peculiar that this department store card balance wasn’t a personal conversation with me first though. Then I started noticing a few other things — snippy emails from the mortgage specialist with a “you should know this already” tone for asking monetary questions. Then the condescension started escalating to my Realtor. Now how am I supposed to buy this place if the mortgage rep is being hostile to the woman representing me and then leaving my attorney out of the loop too?
In any other circumstance, the Realtor can assist a home buyer with finding a mortgage company to work with. (My Realtor already had three other companies in mind.) They’re already familiar with this industry and may know the best financial institution to work with. But I saw how smoothly a co-worker’s purchase went and made up my mind that I’d use his mortgage lender.
As my purchase started to unfold, and I told him about what was going on, I kept noticing a pattern — he was blaming me for everything.
“I didn’t get asked those questions.”
“Well, maybe you’re arguing with him.”
“He didn’t treat me like that.”
“Are you getting an attitude with him?”
If you’re noticing an undertone to the questions, trust me, I did too. I looked at my co-worker, a racially ambiguous man with a racially ambiguous name who was married to a white woman and thought, “Gee, what could be the difference between me, you, and my black female attorney and black female Realtor?”
To make the situation even worse, I was already getting this same sort of treatment from my boss at the time, but I needed this job badly in order to get the loan. The last thing I needed to do was ruffle her feathers at the same time I was trying to close on a six-digit deal. So instead of losing my temper, I called my mortgage specialist up and asked him to tell me and me only if there was some kind of financial problem with my credit score. His response? Impatience and indifference. I paused for a minute, blinked, thought about all the odds against me (hated my condo rental, despised my boss, mortgage specialist was being a jerk) and said in an even tone, “Cancel the deal.”
Recommended Read: “Evanston kept its word: Housing reparations for black folks ~ First 16 black ‘ancestors’ chosen for housing income”
I had no idea that that would be the one thing that would suddenly make all ducks line up in a row. My mortgage specialist got his boss involved. His boss (after apologizing profusely and saying he knows the rep is “kind of an asshole but knows the real estate market in and out”) got in touch with my Realtor and my real estate attorney. Then the latter two got in touch with the condo board and property manager of the unit I wanted to buy. Within a month, the deal was done. Kohl’s was no longer an issue. (And yes, I still shop at Kohl’s.)
Mystery shopping prepared me for housing racial pitfalls
Coincidentally, I was hired to do this kind of deal a decade earlier. A company hired me to go into a mortgage institution to see how I was treated. I was supposed to be a housewife who wanted to buy a home and figure out her options.
(Side note: At my first job for a radio research firm, I bought this gorgeous ring with my first paycheck. Everyone kept telling me it looked like an engagement ring, even though I was in high school. I never thought it was; I just really wanted this ring. After the 100,000th person asked me when I was getting married, I realized I probably should’ve chosen a different ring — and a different tattoo. For this mystery shop, I put that piece of jewelry on my ring finger and voila. I smiled when the mortgage specialist immediately looked at my hand.)
The mystery shopping company told me what my annual salary should be, where I should’ve previously lived and what my job was before I became a housewife. Sweating bullets (lying does not come naturally to me), I recited everything. I knew absolutely nothing about buying a home so their script sounded like gibberish to me.
To my surprise, my mortgage lender (a black man) seemed ready to sell me a home that day — spouse or not. I had to stop him from moving forward and told him that I needed to talk to my husband. I darted out of there quickly, reporting back to the mystery shoppers to let them know the results and get paid a few hundred dollars for this (nerve-racking) assignment.
Recommended Read: “That time I was a mystery shopper ~ In a tech-dominant world, should companies still hire mystery shoppers?”
Still, somehow seeing this playout in my real life— without a mystery shopping paycheck — was a bummer. This was exactly what the mystery shopping company was searching for, and I wasn’t even trying. I had no script. I was just a woman who wanted to buy a condo (with an obsession for Simply Vera “SV” purses from Kohl’s).
Tips for working within the housing industry
When your money or a financial deal is in the control of another person’s hands, it can make the recipient that much more vulnerable. And when that’s the case, sometimes people will take advantage of you. So what should prospective black home buyers do to avoid this?
Take homeownership classes. Even if you think the Internet answers everything, sign up anyway. Find a class with other new homeowners who can ask the questions you don’t even know that you need to know. Your questions and their answers will be helpful to you both. Learn the terminology (ex. escrow, ARM, P&I, GFE, FHA, etc.). If this sounds like word salad to you, that’s a problem.
Recommended Read: “Homegrown podcast: Meet Christopher Meeks, trainer for the First Time Home Buyer Education program ~ Step 1 to homeownership: Speak the same language as your mortgage loan officer
2. Although Realtors are required to follow the National Association of Realtor’s code regarding not competing with each other for purchases, compatibility is key. I didn’t really know who I wanted to work with. I was just emailing and calling a bunch of people and lucked up on my Realtor. Although we did have a couple of snags in our communication, by the closing date, she handed me a gift, I gave her a big hug and took pics, and I would still recommend her to anyone. Years later, I asked her to do an interview for my “Homegrown” podcast. After interviewing other Realtors, I now understand her job more. However, if you see that you and your Realtor are not meshing well, it may be time to amicably part ways before earnest money is put down.
3. Never let anyone (be it the seller’s Realtor, buyer’s Realtor or buyer) rush you into a deal. Post-purchase and living in my condo already, I distinctly recall a condo association member who was upset with another condo unit owner for refusing to sell his unit. The potential buyer wanted to pay in cash. He also wanted to buy it for half the asking price and claimed, “paying in cash is a surefire deal.” Yes, it’s a surefire deal for half the value, and the seller wasn’t going for it. Another home seller may be just that desperate to sell (or buy) and not get the value. Although that association member is still taking his time with selling his unit, I was not even slightly surprised when months later, the “cash” unit owner refused to vote for that seller to be part of our condo board.
Recommended Read: “The Hidden Value of Mystery Shoppers ~ Why Secret Shopper Intel Still Surpasses Customer Survey Data”
4. Ask your real estate attorney all the questions that need to be answered pre-purchase. Don’t go into closing just signing off on paperwork without knowing what you’re signing. I remember the closers getting a little impatient with me when I wanted to know why home insurance was tied into my mortgage. I let them sigh and huff, and I still refused to sign until I fully understand how those two connected. If there is any paperwork you don’t understand, ask. The closers are trying to get out of the door. You are trying to get keys to another door. Both of you have a right to know what’s going on.
5. Work with a mortgage lender that you can recommend. After a while, all banks look alike. How do you know which one is the right one? You may not initially know. But it won’t take long with your mortgage lender before you realize that you are not meshing. In my case, “Cancel the deal” put me with a supervisor that was night and day from the original rep. And although my racially ambiguous co-worker still blamed me for the original deal almost going sour, he congratulated me (while I rolled my eyes) when the deal was done.
Homeownership is a big responsibility. For some, it may be easier, cheaper and more attractive to not have to deal with such a major responsibility. For others, making a landlord rich gets very old after a while. No one can tell you which decision is the right one to make. What I can tell you is this: If you start feeling more like a financial institution acts like they’re doing you a favor instead of doing business with you, shop elsewhere.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote,” “Tickled,” “We Need To Talk” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the weekly posts every Wednesday.
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