When we were homebuyers, it was irritating to us that our agent wouldn’t answer certain questions that we thought were perfectly reasonable. Now that Karen is an agent, we know exactly why he wouldn’t provide direct answers to what we thought were simple questions. Questions like:

• “What are the demographics in this area?”
• "How are the schools here?”
• “What are the crime statistics of this neighborhood?”
• “Is there a church nearby?”
• “Is this a nice neighborhood?”

If an agent were to provide a direct answer to any of these questions and others like them, they would be putting themselves at risk of running afoul of the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, sex, national origin, or religion. The best your agent can do is to provide you with places to do your own research and answer these questions for yourself. It’s unfortunate, but this is what your friendly neighborhood real estate agent has to do to stay on the right side of the law!