Fair Housing Testing: What Is It?

Fair Housing Testing: What Is It?

by | Jan 9, 2015 | Guest Post

fhco_logoFollowing is a guest post by Jo Becker, Education/Outreach Specialist for the Fair Housing Council of Oregon.

The topic of fair housing testing strikes fear and incites anger in many within the housing industry—independent landlords and professional property managers, sales brokers, mortgage lenders, homeowners’ associations, and other housing providers. Most are very unclear what testing is, and what it isn’t.

First, let me say that as a former REALTOR®, I am well aware that the housing industry is heavily regulated. Legal issues and accompanying regulatory bodies range from licensing law to fair housing law. The Fair Housing Council of Oregon (FHCO) is not the only organization that performs testing. Those familiar with the sales world, you might recall when the Oregon Real Estate Agency (OREA) conducted audit tests a few years ago to verify that agents were explaining the then-new Agency Disclosure Pamphlet and presenting it for signature upon “first substantive contact” with a prospective client. This is one more example of testing in the industry.

What is Fair Housing Testing?
Who does it? What are the implications for you in your daily practice?

FHCO is not an enforcement agency. We do however conduct enforcement-related activities such as testing or filing a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or another regulatory governmental agency (such as Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries), either on our own behalf or in assisting a housing consumer who feels a fair housing violation has been committed against them. We also sometimes file lawsuits with private attorneys, especially if testing evidence supports an allegation of a fair housing violation. Each year we also assist hundreds of housing providers and consumers in resolving fair housing problems in an informal manner, to the satisfaction of both parties. A good deal of our day-to-day work focuses on education and outreach to both housing consumers and housing providers about their rights and responsibilities under federal, state, and local fair housing laws (see a list of FHCO classes).

If someone contacts our office with what appears may be a fair housing allegation, we take the information and determine if it is a testable situation. Testing is used to identify ordinary business practices (of a company, an individual, etc) and these practices are usually confirmed with a series of tests. We may use testers who are not simply posing as a housing consumer, but someone who may follow a transaction through to the end and purchase a home, obtain a loan, enter into a lease agreement, etc. These folks aren’t just testers, they’re bonafide prospects currently in the market to buy/lend/lease.

We’d much rather eradicate illegal discrimination through education and making ourselves available for your questions than to “catch” you doing something wrong. Consider us a resource. Did you know that we provide testing as a fee-for-service? Organizations and firms may contract with us to see how staff or members are doing in complying with fair housing laws—the results of these tests are confidential under the terms of the contract.

We also offer a wealth of information available for housing providers on our website. A few pages likely to be of interest:
• Housing Provider Information
• Guidebooks
• Public Service Videos
• Sample Forms
• Brochures
• Translated Materials

Please consider supporting the work we do by joining FHCO today. Support from the housing industry is particularly important as we stand together to ensure housing for all in the spirit of fair housing laws.

 

Fair Housing Testing: What Is It?

MLS Insight: A Day in the Life of an RMLS™ Help Desk Technician

by | Dec 30, 2014 | RMLS News

The Stellar RMLS™ Help Desk staff - Joanne Fulgaro, Ryan Jacobsen, and Serena Kendrick

The stellar RMLS™ Help Desk staff: Joanne Fulgaro, Ryan Jacobsen, and Serena Kendrick.

This post is part of MLS Insight, a series about how things work at RMLS™.

The RMLS™ Help Desk receives the highest scores of any department at RMLS™ on our annual Subscriber Satisfaction Survey. For the last three years running, they have garnered a 4 out of 5, or “Very Satisfied.” What makes the Help Desk tick?

To help answer that question I asked for the call log for a single day. That day turned out to be Monday, December 15, 2014. As it happened, Monday, December 15th turned out to be an average day at the call center. Eighty calls were received. In the twelve months ending in November, there were just about 23,000 calls. The Help Desk is on duty 5-1/2 days a week, so the average number of calls per day is roughly 80.4 calls.

Calls on Monday, December 15th came from subscribers in offices located in 21 different cities and towns in Oregon and Washington. Everett, Washington, was the northernmost and Joseph, Oregon, the most easterly. Port Orford was both the most southern and most western location of a call received that day. Incidentally, Port Orford has the distinction of being the westernmost incorporated place in the lower 48 states. The highest number of calls came predictably from Portland at 27, followed by Vancouver, Washington, and Lake Oswego, Oregon, at ten each.

Almost three fourths of the calls—58—came from subscribers. Fourteen participant brokers, four appraisers, and three personal assistants called. One call was received from a non-member in central Oregon, looking for information about joining RMLS™.

The Help Desk technicians were able to resolve all but one of the 80 calls that same day. One call concerning a browser problem was carried over for resolution the next day. In that case, a session for the technician to use a remote desktop was scheduled the following day to delve further into the problem.

More than eighty percent of those 80 calls received on December 15th were handled by the Help Desk technicians. Most of the other 15 callers were referred to internal RMLS™ resources, primarily the Accounting, Membership, and Data Accuracy staff. In only three cases were subscribers redirected to other entities. On this day those were AOL, RPR, and SentriLock.

Fifty-four of the calls were about some functionality in RMLSweb, including 20 calls about password issues and 16 about Listing Load. These two areas are consistently at the top of the call topics list. Other RMLSweb questions concerned searching of various kinds (4), report printing (3), inventory (2), and tax ID (2), leaving seven other unique RMLSweb questions. Other areas our answer folks provided help in were SentriLock (9), membership (6), Data Accuracy (4), and training classes (2). There were five calls about other topics such as transaction forms, RPR and IDX.

It was a full day of questions and answers at the Help Desk on Monday, December 15th, just like it is on most days. Thank you, Help Desk!

Next time we will talk about disaster recovery/business continuance planning at RMLS™. If you have any questions you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog post.