Do landlords take race in consideration? (Boston: real estate, apartment complex, renting)

[miu]

Originally Posted by stan4

It's not illegal to prefer anything.
It's illegal to act on it.

Agree! And if it's a landlord occupied 2 or 3 family house, the landlord does get to have more say in who he or she rents to. I live in a two family dwelling, so when I did rent out the other apartment, I found tenants through WOM from friends. I always picked a single person without children. My ideal tenant would have been Japanese or Korean. I had a Japanese roommate years ago, and he was the best! Extremely clean and always paid his rent on time. No personal dramas either. And even though I'm Chinese, I wouldn't go out of my way to have a Chinese tenant.

And in terms of living with people from other cultures, if I rented to an Indian or Pakistani person, I would expect to smell the curry spices from their meals to permeate the building. I love Indian food, but I would prefer not to have to smell curry every single day.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by Bettafish

I'm looking for a place in Boston area.

Just today, someone was interested, but stopped emailing me right after he saw my pic.
(He asked for a pic so I gave him a link to my university webpage.)
I'm Asian and that is a turn-off?

I didn't have such experience before.

Do they? Yes. Some do.
Can they? No. It's against the law.
A common language is not a defense for housing discrimination.

[Cantabridgienne]

I'm flabbergasted that you sent the landlord a picture of yourself. I

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by miu

Agree! And if it's a landlord occupied 2 or 3 family house, the landlord does get to have more say in who he or she rents to. I live in a two family dwelling, so when I did rent out the other apartment, I found tenants through WOM from friends. I always picked a single person without children. My ideal tenant would have been Japanese or Korean. I had a Japanese roommate years ago, and he was the best! Extremely clean and always paid his rent on time. No personal dramas either. And even though I'm Chinese, I wouldn't go out of my way to have a Chinese tenant.

And in terms of living with people from other cultures, if I rented to an Indian or Pakistani person, I would expect to smell the curry spices from their meals to permeate the building. I love Indian food, but I would prefer not to have to smell curry every single day.

This brings me to this question. What if you are an individual looking to rent in a specific place, and you don't live up to any stereotype expected of you?

[miu]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

This brings me to this question. What if you are an individual looking to rent in a specific place, and you don't live up to any stereotype expected of you?

As long as you are a good tenant that pays rent on time, doesn't abuse the apartment and is considerate of your neighbors... it's all good.

I suppose that if you are messier, noisier than expected and late on the rent, all landlords are not going to want you as a tenant.

So let's say that you were Japanese, I rented to you, and then you were always late on the rent and you had noisy guests over all of the time. I would definitely not be happy with the situation, but my experience with you wouldn't much change my perception of Japanese culture in general because of all the positive experiences I've had in the past with Japanese people.

At the end of the day, it's your behaviour as an individual that matters, not the stereotype. Landlords screen prospective tenants carefully because no one wants to deal with bad tenants. And they tend to approach the screening process pessimistically because tenant horror stories are sadly all too common.

[stan4]

Originally Posted by miu

And in terms of living with people from other cultures, if I rented to an Indian or Pakistani person, I would expect to smell the curry spices from their meals to permeate the building. I love Indian food, but I would prefer not to have to smell curry every single day.

This is such a weird stereotype.
Maybe it's because we have always lived in large houses, but my parents' home has never smelled like curry. Also, Indian people don't make curry every day or even every week. I get to have my mom's curry maybe once a month or two.
I'm Indian...I never make curry...so renting to me would be 'safe from curry smells.'

[miu]

Originally Posted by stan4

This is such a weird stereotype.
Maybe it's because we have always lived in large houses, but my parents' home has never smelled like curry. Also, Indian people don't make curry every day or even every week. I get to have my mom's curry maybe once a month or two.
I'm Indian...I never make curry...so renting to me would be 'safe from curry smells.'

Well... I'm going by my own experiences. I stayed with a friend in Sunnyvale, CA for two weeks once. He was Pakistani and lived in a modern apartment complex that was full of Indians and Pakistanis. And the entire building always smelled of curry. And in the entire time I was there (and almost every day we swam in the outside swimming pool, I never saw anyone from another culture or race.

And I have neighbors that are two houses away who are Indian. Every time they use their outside BBQ grille, it smells of Indian food.

I don't know, but it is acceptable for any landlord to ask a prospective tenant what their style of cooking is? And if it isn't, then what might happen is that just to be safe, a landlord might use a stereotype to avoid getting in a situation of the new tenant producing cooking smells that might offend the other residents. Just as many landlords would prefer to rent to non-smokers... both for safety reasons and avoiding the apartment being infested with stale cigarette smell.

[stan4]

Originally Posted by miu

I don't know, but it is acceptable for any landlord to ask a prospective tenant what their style of cooking is? And if it isn't, then what might happen is that just to be safe, a landlord might use a stereotype to avoid getting in a situation of the new tenant producing cooking smells that might offend the other residents. Just as many landlords would prefer to rent to non-smokers... both for safety reasons and avoiding the apartment being infested with stale cigarette smell.

I don't know, but I think that any offending smells that permeate should be reviewable.

[miu]

Originally Posted by stan4

I don't know, but I think that any offending smells that permeate should be reviewable.

But what defines an offending smell? I feel that we can all agree that sewage produces an offending smell. But with ethnic cuisines, what smells delicious to some might be offensive to others. And once a tenant has moved into a place, getting them to compromise their cooking habits or asking them to move out might be very difficult. And it's not fair to the landlord for them to have to install commercial grade kitchen venting just to accommodate a resident's ethnic cooking habits.

BTW when I was in college, I had a roommate who objected to my cooking with Chinese black beans, he just found the smell disgusting. So I stopped cooking with them and just got my occasional fix by eating out at a Chinese restaurant.

[stan4]

Yeah...frying onions is terrible for me...I love the taste, but that sharp smell is terrible.