Cape Town comes out tops as South Africa’s racist estate agent capital

The Western Cape, and Cape Town in particular, has topped the list in terms of the number of racism complaints submitted to the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA).

The regulatory body, formerly the Estate Agency Affairs Board (EAAB), is next week holding public hearings, sparked by a complaint lodged in October last year by potential tenant Pol Osei, who was allegedly told by estate agent Gabriella Johnson her client was “race specific” when it came to who they would rent to.

In preparation for the hearings, the board has called for submissions of racism complaints, and Mamodupi Mohlala, the regulatory body CEO, said it was clear from the number of submissions that racism in the property sector is rife and underreported.

Mohlala said the hearings, to take place in Johannesburg on Tuesday, 22 March, followed by hearings in Cape Town and Durban on 23 and 24 March respectively, would help unearth the extent and prevalence of alleged racist practices in the sector.

The public hearings, she said, will further investigate the efficacy of the application of the code of conduct for the industry, and the newly enacted Property Practitioners Act.

On completion of the hearing, the agency will submit a consolidated report with comments from industry players to the Minister of Human Settlements, Mmamoloko Kubayi, with the aim of introducing legislative changes that will address racism in the property sector.

Racism aplenty in agencies

According to submissions received, things are apparently so bad at one agency that a white agent who is married to a black man was apparently told to drop her African surname if she hoped to do business in the Mother City’s southern suburbs.

At the same agency, the principal agent refused to hire people of colour, as homeowners allegedly wouldn’t open their doors to people of colour in the Southern suburbs, with one intern estate agent detailing how issues of racism at said agency drove him to quit.

 A black woman employed as a receptionist at one of leading estate agencies has told the regulatory body how she was instructed to make tea and clean her white bosses’ desks, and how the bosses made derogatory and racist remarks about black people in her presence.

Several estate agents also complained about restrictive mandates, with the purpose of excluding black African agents and confining them to township businesses.

Joburg not exactly clean either

Though Cape Town was ahead, Joburg also had some unfortunate incidents reported.

A Johannesburg estate agent claims that body corporates charge subscription fees, which most black Africans could not afford and thus led to them being excluded from economic activity.

The agent cites affluent areas like Waterfall, north of Johannesburg, Blue Valley Gold Estate, as well as Midstream Estate.

What is it with estate agents and racism?

The sector became synonymous with racism in 2016 when late estate agent Penny Sparrow was found guilty of hate speech in the Equality Court for describing black people as “monkeys” in a social media post.

It emerged shortly afterward that Sparrow was employed by a prominent national estate agency, who promptly distanced themselves from the controversial racist.

Sparrow, meanwhile dug in her heels, and instead of apologising insisted that there was nothing racist about her posts.

Another real estate agent, Vicki Momberg, was sentenced to two years in jail, with an additional one year suspended, in March 2018 in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court for calling a black police officer the k-word in 2016.

Similar to Sparrow, Momberg also maintained that her behaviour was not as bad as it was made out to be, and continued to commit several other racist faux pas throughout her trial and subsequent imprisonment.