Online real estate brokerage Redfin Corp. agreed to stop refusing to provide service to lower-priced homes and will pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by fair-housing groups who claimed the company’s “minimum price policy” disadvantaged non-White buyers and sellers.
The Seattle-based firm also agreed to be monitored by the groups, led by the National Fair Housing Alliance in Washington, and to make other changes to ensure it provides equitable access to real estate services, according to the settlement agreement filed Friday. Redfin didn’t admit liability or wrongdoing.
“This settlement sends a strong message to those throughout the real estate industry,” Morgan Williams, general counsel at NFHA, said in an interview. Minimum-price policies “create an unjustified discriminatory impact and are a violation of federal civil-rights law.”
