The Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors yesterday denied charges of racial discrimination and antitrust law violations leveled by a group of black real estate brokers and agents.
Responding to a lawsuit filed Friday, board President David W. Baird countered that the trade association offers membership to all licensed real estate brokers and agents in the state and actively encourages minorities to join.
In a suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Real Estate Brokers of Baltimore Inc. accused the board of monopolizing real estate sales and discriminating against black real estate brokers, agents and sellers by limiting access to electronic home-sales listings.
The Baltimore region's multiple listing service -- the main source of information agents use to link buyers and sellers -- is open only to members of Realtors boards belonging to the National Association of Realtors. Real Estate Brokers, formed in 1947 when blacks were barred from all-white realty groups, is affiliated instead with a minority trade association, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.
Christine Vasiliou, the Greater Baltimore Board's executive vice president, said the board never has considered opening access to nonmembers, although the National Association of Realtors allows individual boards to decide whether to do so.
"A trade association making its services available to nonmembers is certainly a novel idea," Ms. Vasiliou said.
The lawsuit stemmed from a failed attempt by a member of Real Estate Brokers to join Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Information Technologies Inc. (MARIT), the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors subsidiary that runs the multiple list, without joining the board.
Concetta Corriere, president of MARIT, said the issue "is not one of discrimination, but of nonmember access to a Realtor service."
"All trade associations offer services of one type or another that are available exclusively to their own members, who pay dues to support those services," she said.
Mr. Baird called participation in a Realtor-owned multiple listing service an exclusive right of membership. "To allow nonmember use of services would defeat the purpose of a trade association."
Each year the association attempts to recruit all nonmember real estate companies listed by the Maryland Real Estate Commission, the board said. In 1994, minorities made up 32 percent of the board's membership, slightly less than the 39 percent combined minority population of Baltimore City and County, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.