March 19, 1999
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A company representing more than 200,000 real estate agents worldwide will offer cultural diversity training as part of a program developed by the National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Cendant Corp. will offer the training to agents in its real estate division, which includes Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA, company officials said Friday at a real estate conference at the San Diego Convention Center.
``You need to go to the marketplace without assumption as to what unique needs a person might have,'' said Cendant spokesman Ted Deutsch. ``There needs to be an awareness of different hand gestures, unique expressions and a sense of time urgency. People of different backgrounds have different business cultures.''
Minority buyers account for 42 percent of the increase in the number of U.S. homeowners since 1994, according to statistics recently compiled by Harvard University.
``We are uniquely positioned to reach a large number of realtors to help them discover how best to develop their business in a diverse marketplace,'' Deutsch said.
The training will include sessions on provisions of the U.S. Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin.
Last year, HUD launched a $7.5 million study to investigate patterns of discrimination in the selling and renting houses and apartments. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo has cited home ownership rates of 72.5 percent for whites compared with 45 percent for blacks and 44 percent for Hispanics.
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