Agents at RE/MAX Equity Group in Portland, Ore., were suspicious.
A site called agent-ratings.com was giving F grades to agents as a result of what appeared to be faked customer ratings. They consulted with the company’s general counsel Jeffrey S. Davis.
Agent-ratings purports to protect consumers from “lazy, irresponsible” real estate practitioners. But its ratings are highly suspect, Davis says.
At the site, agents are given a grade in five categories: knowledge, professionalism, reliability, experience, and communication, as well as an overall grade.
The site offers an A ratings for life to agents who pay $99. If you look at the ratings of agents who haven’t paid for the A rating, you’ll see some obvious patterns, Davis says. First, it appears that every agent who hasn’t paid has an overall F rating, he says. In addition:
- No agent has an F ratings in every category.
- Every agent has two or three—not one or four or five—different grades.
- No agent has any individual category rating of B or A.
“These factors suggest a limited attempt to make the ratings appear to be genuine,” he says. “There would be much more diversity in the ratings if the ratings were real.”
I did my own search of the site. When I searched for agents from Oak Park, Ill., where I live, the site returned results from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and Thousand Oaks, Calif. So I tried using the “Find Agents by State” function and clicked on Illinois. Lo and behold, every name I clicked on had D and F ratings in the individual categories and an overall grade of F.
Davis investigated the provenance of agent-ratings.com, and, again, what he turned up was suspicious. “The WHOIS record indicates it was created on Jan. 25, 2013,” he says. But when he scanned the site, the customer ratings supposedly predated creation of the site. “I just took a quick look at about 100 of the ratings, and all of the agents’ ratings are dated 2011 and 2012,” he says.
Vigilance Required
The recent exposure and shutdown of bogus rating Web site—Realtor-complaints.com—was a victory for the industry and proof of the need to be vigilant in policing so-called rating sites.
In the case of Realtor-complaints, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® attorneys were able to identify the site’s operators and exert pressure based on misuse of the REALTOR® trademark.
Evaluating and taking action on agent-ratings.com is trickier.
“We have reviewed all the domain name records associated with [agent-ratings],” says NAR attorney Michael Thiel. “The site’s real owners are hidden behind one of the privacy services that operate to prevent people from contacting those owners. It appears that the company has at least some operations in Panama, as the contact page includes a location there.”
If the location in Panama is correct, he says, that means the site is operating outside of U.S. jurisdiction, making NAR’s options for challenging it limited.
Consumers should be able to see through the site’s weak content at a cursory glance. But if you get questions from prospects, you can point out that such sites have cropped up around a variety of professions, and any site that offers “premium ratings” of professionals for a fee isn’t a true rating site.
Other sites, such as RipoffReport.com, are more difficult to judge. This site allows essentially anonymous, unsubstantiated claims. Yet it also allows those who have been the subject of a complaint to provide a free rebuttal.
The trouble is that rebutting a complaint can make the practitioner look defensive, says Jeff Berger, a REALTOR® from Boca Raton, Fla., who says he has been the subject of false complaints. For example, one complaint against him centered around a supposed listing appointment.
Berger, who got his license and joined the association in pursuit of another goal – to found and grow the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals – says he hopes to go on a listing appointment someday. But, thus far, he has never been on one. Meanwhile, the claim continues to harm his reputation, he says, by turning up high in a Google search of his name.
A Real Ratings Alternative
Given the continued plague of fake and unsubstantiated ratings, I was excited to learn that NAR has partnered with the respected Quality Service Certification to launch its own agent rating system. The REALTOR® Excellence Program enables brokers and agents to receive and track ratings from actual customers.
I’ve talked with Kevin Romito of QSC, as well as NAR General Counsel Laurie Janik, who is facilitating pilot programs in suburban Chicago, Denver, St. Paul, and the state of California. Ratings are attained using QSC’s time-tested customer service survey, which brokers have been using more than a dozen years.
Brokers and agents who participate in the REALTOR® Excellence Program, choose whether to share those ratings publicly or not. Either way, they can be sure the ratings are the result of actual closed transactions, and they can use the detailed data to improve their customer service experience.
Long term, if the REP became a national rating standard, it could conceivably encourage E&O insurers to offers discounts to companies and practitioners with high ratings, Janik says.
Better still, if the program gains consumer recognition, that will make it much more difficult for false and unsubstantiated ratings to surface.
It didn’t take long once the pressure was on to shut down Realtor-complaints.com. The Web site was misusing the REALTOR® trademark, posting false complaints about real estate practitioners, and demanding money to have the complaints removed from the site.
On Jan. 10, I wrote a post about the site and more than two dozen readers responded. Many recounted their stories of finding their name on Realtor-complaints.com and being asked to pay to have the complaint removed. NAR and many state associations were working in concert to end the misuse of the trademark. Yesterday, a page appeared indicating that the site had been sold and that it would be re-launching May 1. Today, the site is simply a page of links operated by one of the advertising sites.
The WHOIS record indicates that the site is suspended. “That is encouraging,” says National Association of REALTORS® attorney Mike Thiel, “but we are trying to find out what that means going forward.”
One thing’s for sure: The closure of Realtor-complaints.com isn’t the end of such Internet scams. My Jan. 10 post included simple steps you can take to manage your own reputation online. But there’s one step you should never have to take: paying money to have false information removed from a site.
Have you noticed how quickly your online conversations go into the ether once they’re finished? You might remember that one of your friends had a brilliant idea about how to convert first-time buyers or a witty comment on the latest Fed pronouncement, but retracing that message involves scrolling through old posts—a tedious, time-sucking pursuit.
On Thursday, at Real Estate Connect in New York, real estate tech bloggers Chris Smith and Jimmy Mackin will announce a solution—a way to tag, track, and search Facebook conversations. The new tool, Curaytor, plugs Facebook’s Group API into a WordPress backend, making conversations in groups searchable. Setting aside my personal bias against creative spellings, Curaytor looks to be a neat tool for getting at the best content in Facebook groups you’re following.
As proof of concept, Smith and Mackin have started with content from open real estate groups like Michael McClure’s Raise the Bar in Real Estate discussion. With Facebook groups that are tracked in Curaytor, anyone can quickly see what others are saying or view content from the discussion by topic. Smith says open Facebook groups were the ideal place to start with curating online discussions because Facebook has become the online water cooler with 1 million new status updates posted every minute. Eventually, he says, Curaytor could include conversations from other forums, such as Twitter and Google+. Unlike Google search, for example, Curaytor searches what your friends and colleagues are saying about the latest gadgets, business strategies, and news.
Currently, the site doesn’t pull in an individual’s groups, only the open groups that Curaytor has added, so for now at least, everyone who goes to the site sees the same information.
The launch of Curaytor was in some ways tempered by Facebook’s own announcement yesterday of Graph Search, a technology that lets you search friends’ activities on Facebook. (Here’s a CNNMoney article on Graph Search). What the Facebook tool seems to lack, however, is the curation part. Curaytor promises to organize social conversations in real time so that you can view them in categories like trending, popular, and recent. Using WordPress enables Curaytor to tag posts and populate a “Staff Picks” feature. You can search Curaytor by keyword, user profile picture, company name, or news source.
And while Smith and Mackin are focused on the real estate market today, there’s no reason Curaytor couldn’t be used to track and search conversations on any topic that’s actively discussed on Facebook, Smith says.
A Web site of suspicious origin is misusing the REALTOR® trademark in what seems to be an attempt to get money from real estate practitioners.
The site, Realtor-complaints.com, supposedly publishes consumer complaints about real estate agents. However, an investigation by the New Jersey association of REALTORS® showed a string of complaints against its members, all using similar phrasing. “This leads to suspicion that these are not all public-submitted complaints,” says Lauren Castellano, director of communications for the New Jersey Association of REALTORS®.
Not only that, when agents who have been the subject of a complaint attempt to make contact, the site offers them the “opportunity” to pay to have the complaint and their name removed from the site, says Michael Thiel, an attorney for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. NAR legal staff checked the WHOIS record for the site and discovered it’s hosted on servers located in the Seychelles. “It’s recorded as having been initially registered on Jan. 1, 2013,” Thiel says, ”which makes the site’s claim of having been around since 2002 very suspect.”
Thiel’s office has received a number of calls from members who’ve been informed, via e-mail, that their name is listed at the site. NAR attorneys are investigating and, if necessary, will take steps to have the site shut down. [Jan. 23 Update: Wendy Legerton below asks why NAR isn't taking more aggressive action. In response, NAR Associate General Counsel Ralph Holmen offers this: "This site does not have authority to use the term REALTOR®, and NAR has taken action to stop them from using it. That action does not (yet) involve litigation, but the possibility of initiating suit remains if our efforts are not successful.”] But it’s important to approach with caution any service that claims to either track or burnish your reputation. Online reputation management—and reputation trashing—is a growing enterprise, and there are simple steps you can take to manage your own reputation online:
- Make sure all of your profiles (on social media sites, at REALTOR.com, and so on) are complete, up to date, and consistent.
- Be proactive in asking customers for reviews in legitimate forums, such as Yelp and LinkedIn.
- Search Google and Yahoo for your name and your company’s name. Save each search as a browser favorite and check them daily.
- Sign up for Google Alerts so that you’re notified when your name appears in a search. Also set up alerts for variations of your name, your company name, and other keywords.
- Ask your customers where they’ve gone to search for information about real estate and other professionals.
- Correct errors quickly. Immediately contact the Web site and be willing to prove your case with information from your MLS or other sources. But don’t be tempted to pay to have information removed. “It’s hard to imagine a legitimate site requiring you to pay to take down false information,” Thiel says.
Bill Landau of Wells Fargo encourages conference goers to designate a state for REALTORS Relief Foundation contributions. For each member who puts a name on the Relief Wall, Wells Fargo will make a contribution to the foundation.
During the REALTORS® Conference & Expo in Orlando NAR is collecting donations to the REALTORS® Relief Foundation (RRF) for Hurricane Sandy disaster assistance. Already, more than 1,500 REALTORS® have answered the call for donations. On Oct. 31, NAR President Moe Veissi e-mailed all NAR members, asking for “what you can—every amount helps.” (Update: At a member forum on Thursday, Veissi announced that NAR would match members’ donations up to $500,000.)
If you’re attending the conference, you can make a donation at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage-sponsored Relief Foundation Wall in West Hall D Lobby of the Orange County Convention Center during the following hours:
Friday, Nov. 9: 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday, 11/10: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Sunday, 11/11: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
You can also donate online.
The Foundation is working with associations in New York, New Jersey, and other affected areas to aid victims in those states with housing-related assistance. A donation to RRF is tax-deductible, and 100 percent of donations are used for relief. NAR covers the administrative costs of operating the Foundation.
Read Erica Christoffer’s post, “REALTORS® on the East Coast Help Clients Pick Up the Pieces Following Hurricane Sandy.”
REALTORS Relief Foundation aid will help restore areas such as Union Beach, N.J., damaged when Hurricane Sandy hit the Eastern Shore Oct. 29.
Heather Elias, NAR's director of social business practice
The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® recently welcomed two new communicators into the fold. Heather Elias and Nobu Hata are familiar faces in the RE.net, the informal network of industry professionals who pioneered the use of social media in real estate. Until recently, both were active real estate practitioners, Nobu in Minneapolis and Heather in Loudoun County, Va. On top of their real estate business, the two frequently crisscrossed the country to teach colleagues about how to use social media effectively. Now, they’ve brought their communications expertise “inside” to help NAR grow its social media competency.
Nobu joins the staff as director of digital engagement, working in the Chicago office. Heather joins as director of social business practice, working in the Washington, D.C., office. Together, they’ll expand on the work started by NAR’s first social media director, Todd Carpenter, who left NAR in April for a position with Trulia. I asked Heather and Nobu to tell us about their real estate careers and about their roles at NAR.
How many years did you work in real estate, and what was your best year?
Nobu Hata, NAR's director of digital engagement
Heather: I worked in the business eight years. After the first year, it was evident that we were beginning a market shift. My business was built during the roughest period of decline in the northern Virginia market. My best year in the business was actually this year, which made it a tough decision to transition to this position. So why’d I do it? It’s no secret that I’m passionate about helping REALTORS® become more effective in their businesses, as well as about improving the way that consumers view the real estate industry. My new role gives me a unique opportunity to work toward both.
Nobu: I started in the summer of 1993. Success in the sales end of this industry came easy—I learned from the best! My best year was 2011, and social media was a huge part it.
Looking at your real estate career, what was the hardest part of the job?
Heather: The hardest part of the job for me was the work-life balance. While I was successful in setting boundaries with my clients, I had a difficult time ‘turning it off’ and relaxing at home when I wasn’t supposed to be working.
Nobu: Well, my biggest failure came when I forgot the real-world aspect of this business and failed to attend a closing with a client, a first-time buyer. Literally years of rapport built online disappeared in one horrifying hour for my client. The moment it became real with my client, I wasn’t there, and I regret it. I suppose the hardest part of the job today is that we’re no longer just competing with another agent or brokerage, we’re also competing with information that our customers found at a Web site or on an app—and we have to prove that we add value to all that information they’ve already found.
Do you recall how you got started in social media? Tell me about it.
Nobu: MySpace. Honestly. I wanted to keep track of the bands I love, and MySpace was the best way to do it. The best thing about it was that I could absorb content—a band’s new track—as soon as it was recorded. The real-time aspect of social media was something I knew would change real estate. I just didn’t know how yet. It took me a while to see the “point” to social media in business. I’m a wait-and-see kind of guy, so I watched how my friends and clients were using this stuff before I spent much time in it. When I joined Facebook, my business started to evolve socially. It went from shoot-the-breeze BS to engagement with content to really shutting up and listening to what others had to say. Social media became a huge part of my marketing outreach plan.
Heather: There was an article in REALTOR® Magazine years ago—I think back in 2006—that talked about the Active Rain blogging platform. Being a writer, I jumped in and started bouncing ideas around with other REALTORS® and smart thinkers in the industry. Those interactions led me to Twitter and to establish LoCoMusings [her popular Loudoun County blog, which she says she’ll continue to check in on from time to time]. Everything else grew from there.
A message from NAR President Moe Veissi:
YOU DID IT! Late last week Congress finally acted on one of your key legislative priorities, a five-year reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Even better news, we just received word that the president is expected to sign it into law tomorrow, Friday, July 6, 2012.
All the D.C. pundits said nothing would be accomplished in an election year! You just proved them wrong because you didn’t give up, and now you have the victory to confirm it!
The reason I’m writing this today is to reinforce the commitment of your National Association to you and every other member who expects us to persevere on issues of importance to our members and your clients – the consumers, homeowners, and potential home owners of the future.
NAR, with your help and influence, stayed the course to give lenders and home owners more certainty in the mortgage and real estate market place with available flood insurance for existing home owners and those buying and selling.
This has been a long, arduous battle. The National Flood Insurance Program suffered through over 18 short-term extensions and hobbled along for the last four years without a long-term reauthorization forthcoming from D.C.
It was your charge to us not to give up, not to accept anything less than a long-term reauthorization of the Flood Insurance Program. So, we battled to get every inch along those short-term extensions until now when a full five-year reauthorization has been approved.
This fight traveled over several administrations and more than a few presidents of NAR. I’m proud to represent them and the management team in this victory for you.
But, while I’m proud of my predecessors in leadership, and equally as proud of the most effective management team both in Chicago and D.C., I am especially proud of you!
When called upon to respond to our Calls to Action, you did. When asked to invest in your business, you have. And, when asked to step up and participate you resoundingly did that, too.
New battles lay ahead. There will be no easy victories. Now more than ever, it is our responsibility to be steadfast protectors of the American Dream of home ownership. If not us who? If not now when? So, when we call on you like we did to rally, when we call on you like we do to respond to the calls for action, please; continue to show your commitment.
God bless you all. You are what this country is all about! Rally on REALTOR® Party!
You truly are the heart of the deal… many thanks.
More at REALTOR.org: Congress Reauthorizes Flood Insurance for 5 Years
The magazine’s April 19 legal webinar with National Association of Realtors® attorneys Ralph Holmen and Finley Maxson made a good jumping off point for a series of blog posts. In previous posts, I discussed the RESPA case, Freeman v. Quicken Loans (recently decided by the Supreme Court in favor of NAR’s position; see “Supreme Court Provides Clarity on Brokerages’ Administrative Fees”) and the Fair Housing case Gallagher v. Magner. This week, I explore the property rights victory in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency.
NAR First Vice President Steve Brown wrote about the case in the NAR Leadership Team’s Voices of Real Estate blog (“The Supremes Rule”), and even though this case has been covered quite a bit, it’s worth examining more closely because it speaks so profoundly to an issue that’s at the core of NAR’s purpose—private property rights. The plaintiffs, Michael and Chantell Sackett, bought land in 2005 with the intention of building a house on it. Today, despite the Supreme Court decision in their favor, the Sacketts are still living in a leased property and waiting to build that house—and it’s quite possible their case could be in the courts for several years, according to their attorney, Damien Schiff of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
I wanted to offer a closer look at what the Supreme Court did and didn’t resolve—and to look at what else real estate practitioners should consider when they’re selling land in wetlands areas.
The Issue: What rights do property owners have to challenge Environmental Protection Agency determinations?
The Law: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is charged with writing rules for and enforcing environmental laws, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Among provisions of the Clean Water Act are rules regarding the preservation of wetlands, defined by the EPA as “those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas.”
The Clean Water Act gives the EPA authority to regulate development on a wetland that’s in the area of a “traditional navigable water”—but property owners have often been at odds with the agency over (a) what constitutes a navigable water and (b) what relationship that water and the wetland need to have. This conflict has resulted in owners seeking to challenge so-called EPA wetlands determinations in court. In the past, judges have held that EPA determinations couldn’t be challenged in court by property owners. It sounds ludicrous, but to get their day in court, owners had to fail to comply with the determination and wait to be sued by the agency. In the case National Association of Home Builders v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, the plantiffs sought judicial review of an EPA determination, but a district court granted an EPA and Army Corps of Engineers’ motion to dismiss on the grounds that the agencies must be able to administer the Clean Water Act “without becoming entangled in premature litigation.” The Sacketts faced the same barrier.
The Case: Michael and Chantell Sacketts owned a 2/3-acre lot within a developed subdivision that already had a sewer infrastructure in place. The subdivision overlooks Priest Lake in the Idaho panhandle. As my colleague Rob Freedman explained in a post written before the Supreme Court decision came down, “The couple secured local building permits and even received a verbal okay from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the property, which has water on it periodically but isn’t adjacent to any standing body of water, is not a wetlands.”
But when the Sacketts began taking the first steps toward building a house—filling in a portion of their lot with dirt and rocks—EPA officials ordered them to stop and to restore the property to its original state. The Sacketts asked for an EPA hearing but were denied, so they brought the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho. They said the EPA’s order was “arbitrary [and] capricious” under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and that their inability to gain judicial review violated the Fifth Amendment, which states that “No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Their court dismissed their claims, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
In 2011, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Along with a number of other organizations, NAR filed an amicus curiae brief that pointed out, among other things, that environmental groups have had no trouble gaining judicial review of agency determinations. “Thus,” the brief said, “as it now stands, judicial review of jurisdictional determinations is a one-way ratchet . . ..”
The Decision: On March 21, 2012, the Supreme Court affirmed NAR’s position, granting the Sacketts the right to challenge the EPA determination. The justices unanimously rejected the government’s assertion that the EPA determination wasn’t a “final order,” and thus wasn’t subject to judicial review.
The Sacketts’ case is now back in District Court—and the couple will get their day in court. The chance of success depends on the evidence. “We don’t know what is in the EPA’s record,” Schiff says. “They never had to file evidence. I’m hopeful that sometime this year, the EPA will file its record and we’ll be able to see what evidence the agency has to support its determination. I suspect there’s not much because EPA was never on the property.”
Even if the judge decides in the Sacketts’ favor, the case could be held up for years in appeals.
Why It’s Significant for Real Estate Professionals:
Unfortunately, when it comes to wetlands, there’s no blanket rule you can follow to counsel clients. “You can have wetlands experts disagree among themselves about what constitutes a wetland, so determinations will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis,” Schiff says.
After Sackett, however, property owners who receive an EPA compliance order now have means to challenge the order. “Obviously, it doesn’t mean that every single compliance act will become the subject of litigation,” Schiff says, “but [owners] now have a bargaining chip.”
Will Sackett change the way EPA makes determinations? “I certainly think so,” Schiff says. “Senior official have said they don’t think the decision will have much effect in practice. In my view, I don’t see how it cannot. It makes sense that an agency knows that if it can’t be held to accountable, it will act differently. Because it now knows that it can be held to accountable, it’ll spend more time researching before it makes a determination. If has to submit records to court, the agency has an incentive to do a better job.”
One issue the Sackett decision doesn’t address is federal reach. That is, which wetlands does the federal government have the right to regulate and which are off limits? “That’s been the subject of litigation for last two decades,” Schiff says. In a concurring opinion to Sackett, Justice Alito takes a direct stab at the issue of federal reach, calling on Congress to provide guidance: “ . . . the combination of the uncertain reach of the Clean Water Act and the draconian penalties imposed for the sort of violations alleged in this case still leaves most property owners with little practical alternative but to dance to the EPA’s tune. Real relief requires Congress to do what it should have done in the first place: provide a reasonably clear rule regarding the reach of the Clean Water Act.”
In this election year, I don’t expect the issue to be high on Congress’s list.
What Else Do You Need to Know About Selling in Wetlands Areas?
The Sackett decision doesn’t free buyers from the need to conduct due diligence. Before they sign a purchase contract, buyers who plan to make improvements or continue an existing commercial use are strongly encouraged to engage a qualified environmental consultant. Among other things, the consultant can help determine whether any environmental reporting or permitting is required for their intended use of the property. The “Real Estate Acquisition Due Diligence Checklist,” provided courtesy of Minneapolis attorney Andy Jacobson, provides a good starting point; however, buyers in your area should be sure to consult an attorney who knows the state and local rules and regulations that apply.
To learn more about wetlands, visit these sites:
U.S. EPA: http://water.epa.gov/type/wetlands/index.cfm
National Wetlands Inventory from the National Fish & Wildlife Service: http://www.fws.gov/wetlands/
New York Times Op-Ed: Where Are the Clean Water Rules?
Additional Resources:
NAR’s Field Guide to Land Investment (updated June 2012)
Law & Ethics Section of REALTOR.org
Law & Ethics Section of REALTOR® Magazine online
Remember: If you have questions about how or whether a law or case applies to your situation, seek the counsel of a qualified attorney.
Next Up: What right do you have to use words and images that you find online?
In April, the magazine hosted a webinar with two NAR attorneys—Ralph Holmen and Finley Maxson—in which we examined six cases and their potential impact on your business. Last week, I wrote a post on the RESPA case, Freeman v. Quicken Loans. Here’s a look at the Fair Housing case that we discussed. Remember: If you have questions about how or whether these laws or cases apply to your situation, seek the counsel of a qualified attorney.
Issue: Can the federal fair housing law be used to battle local ordinances that might disproportionately hurt minorities?
The Law: The federal Fair Housing Act went into effect in 1968 and was amended in 1988. The law makes it illegal to discriminate in the sale, lease, or rental of housing—or to make housing otherwise unavailable—on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
The Case: We looked at Gallagher v. Magner, which I found fascinating because of the way it turned my conception of fair housing law on its head. I have always thought of property owners, managers, and salespeople as the targets of fair housing enforcement. But in this case, it was the property owners making the accusation. A group of owners in St. Paul, Minn.—with portfolios ranging from one property to 40—filed a claim against the city and city employees, including Steve Magner, supervisor of the city’s Department of Neighborhood Housing and Property Improvement. The owners argued that the city’s stepped-up enforcement of housing codes increased their costs in leasing their properties and so disproportionately affected low-income tenants—and minorities in particular—through increased rents. Among the owners’ arguments was that DNHPI’s policies and actions had a disparate impact on protected classes—in other words, the city’s policies and actions had the effect of discriminating.
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