Racial Profiling in the Singapore Rental Market
Labels: discrimination, economics, profiling, property, rental, singapore
The first half of this month was a real nightmare. Apart from my Macbook Pro going away for some repairs, we were faced with the daunting prospect of looking for a new house. The rental lease expires in the middle of June. Singapore is experiencing a property boom, and there is apparently a supply crunch due to a large number of en-bloc sales. All of which means that prices have shot up to obscene levels.
Given my current fascination with the book Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, I noticed a few interesting things in the entire process.
First, it is funny that when you ask an agent to look for a house for you, his incentives are not completely aligned with yours. His commission is directly proportional to the monthly rental that you end up paying. In such a scenario, he is less likely to try harder for negotiating a lower price for you.
Second, A property boom also means that apartment owners start getting pickier about the kind of tenants they are willing to put up with. We were turned down by more than half of the prospects because the owner did not want Indians (I did not bother to check whether they specifically meant the race, or the nationality).
Such an attitude may have come from stereotypes that exist about Indians (I am talking about nationality here). Somebody was recalling the other day about how they rented out their apartment to three Indians, and at the end of the tenure there were cockroaches running around the apartment. The implication probably being that Indians live shabbily and do not keep their premises upto Singaporean levels of cleanliness and hygiene.
In a chapter titled Economics of Information, Charles Wheelan has this to say about racial profiling in the context of the crackdown on drug dealers (he notes that in Trenton, crack dealers are predominantly African American males and the powdered cocaine dealers are predominantly Latino).
The question that matters is: Are we willing to systematically harass individuals who fit a broad racial or ethnic profile that may, on average, have some statistical support but will still be wrong far more often than it is right? Most people would answer no. We’ve built a society that values civil liberties even at the expense of social order. Opponents of racial profiling always seem to get dragged into the quagmire of whether or not it is good police work. It does not matter. If economics teaches us anything, it is that we ought to weigh costs and benefits. The cost of harassing ten or twenty or one hundred law-abiding people to catch one more drug dealer are not worth it. Might that change in the case of sustained terrorist attack on the United States? Sadly, yes.
My point being, The cost of harassing ten or twenty or one hundred Indians to rule out one more person who is prone to keeping his/her premises unmaintained and unclean are not worth it. Might that change in the case of Singaporean owners looking for prospective tenants? Sadly, yes.
The cost of harassing ten or twenty or one hundred Indians to rule out one more person who is prone to keeping his/her premises unmaintained and unclean are not worth it.
I think your comparison is inappropriate. When talking about racial profiling for picking out dealers and other criminals, the cost is borne by everyone in the society... hard to quantify (for me) but you get the idea.
In the house-owner weeding out Indians case, the former doesn't bear the cost of harassment at all.. so why should he/she feel any economic incentive to change behaviour? Now if, like the USA, Singapore had a fair-housing act disallowing such behaviour and imposing fines for it, you'd immediately make such behaviour literally cost the home-owner.
Well, it depends on how you look at it. There is indeed a cost involved to owners in terms of loss of potential tenants. Yes, in a situation in which the demand is high and supply is limited, you would find tenants easily.
But the point I was making was that it is stupid on a whole to do racial profiling based on stereotypes because it does not make sense from an economic standpoint.
Ofcourse, there is this whole other issue of this being a mindset problem. And while it is difficult to convince owners to give up their bias, you could have fair-housing laws that would make lives easier for people like us :), by actually attaching a cost to such practise.
Well I can certainly confirm that. My friend and I have been calling up some owners from those newspaper classifieds and the first thing they ask is "are you an Indian?" I say yes, and boom! they keep the phone down. My friend is pretty upset by this.
Btw are you looking to share the apartment with someone? Lemme know if you do. I'd be interested.
I don't know if it that comparison is fair Jois. A national agency like the DEA would have much more resources and more standardized benchmarks to carry out more comprehensive filtering tests, based on non-racial parameters. A home owner would rather play safe... especially if he believes in a different risk-return ratio (of uncleanliness vs number of clients/negotiability).
We have a long way to go as a people. It would be different if Indians were the majority of the population, or if we were better educated as to the culture, rather than the stereotype crafted eons ago.
Living in a society where race is nearly everything ie across the causeway from you, and having had experiences with tenants for decades from all continents except South America, including a number of Indian professionals - from India and locals of Indian descent - I do sympathise with you. My observation is that the two groups of Indians certainly have different living habits and standards altogether. Unfortunately, stereotypes develop from empirical observations of the past. My repair and maintenance bills had been significantly different for the two groups. I believe a similar statement may also be true for Chinese Singaporeans and Chinese from China. I wonder if your comments apply then. It boils down to the cost-return equation.
Its true to some extent but not all do.
RK
http://www.rentalandrealestate.com
Racial Profiling is wrong and it will continue until we take a stand. Show your belief in civil rights with a I am not a racial profile t-shirt.
I've been told by some agents that usually Chinese landlords don't like to rent to Indians because of their cooking. (all the spices blah blah will make a mess of their kitchen).
I've never seen sense in any of the things that landlords or agents do. It is almost like they go to an un-school where they un-learn all logic and sense.
On a lighter note, the discrimination here in India is on the basis of marital status :-P
Actually, it is sexual discrimination. It is only bachelors who suffer not the females :-)
If you are Smart byer and want to purchase home at Singapore more standardized benchmarks to carry out more comprehensive filtering tests, based on non-racial parameters. A home owner would rather play safe..
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