Rogers advised that $550,000 would buy access to houses requiring minimal renovations in Plainview and Bethpage.

“For the budget that you’re giving me in Bethpage, you’ll definitely find something, you know, that’s going to be less work, you know, less stuff to do. In Plainview, it’s a good budget. You know, Plainview you may have to do one or two things,” she said.

Congiano indicated that he would be willing to do some repairs. “I can get my hands dirty, if I have to, you know, fix a few things, that’s not really a problem for me,” he told the agent.

Rogers responded: “OK. I mean, I’m confident we can definitely find you something. Pretty much, you know, you might just have to go in and rip up the carpets, paint.”

Test 67 The house search Within 30 minutes of Bethpage and up to $550,000

Black Tester: Kelvin Tune

Listings Given: 11

Census Tracts: 72% white on average

White Tester: Anthony Congiano

Listings Given: 10

Census Tracts: 82% white on average

In fact, Rogers told Congiano that her childhood home, where her mother still lived, was on the market for $539,000. She said she had lived in Plainview for 29 years and in the Plainview-Old Bethpage area for 43. She described the house as “all renovated, basically.”

“You may not like the carpet so you may have to change out the carpet or something. Little things, you know,” Rogers said.

Kelvin Tune, who is black, met with Rogers five months later, also seeking a three-bedroom house within 30 minutes of Bethpage. He said his elderly mother lived in the community.

Tune mentioned nearby Hicksville as a place his purported wife had suggested, but then immediately focused on Bethpage, telling Rogers, “my mom’s lived here in Bethpage,” and saying both that “we’d like within a half-hour range” and a “30-minute radius.”

His top was also $550,000. Now, Rogers said that a $550,000 budget would limit choices in Plainview.

“For instance, in, say, Bethpage, you’ll probably find a house pretty much done. You may have to do like one bathroom, you know, or something like that, or maybe just go in and paint, or something like that. You’ll get a nice house for 550. This area you get nothing,” she told Tune. “Nothing for five, but you will get something that needs a total renovation.”

Only a month before speaking with Tune, the house that Rogers had touted to Congiano as her well-maintained childhood home was taken off the market. On her brokerage web page, Rogers described the house as featuring an eat-in kitchen with new central island, two “new full” baths, a Jacuzzi tub, a “newer” roof and siding and “new” fencing. The house sold for $485,000.

When Tune asked, “So the district is, Plainview is out of the question?” Rogers responded, “Right. Plainview, you’re not going to find something – it’s going to be tough to find something that’s like what you’re looking for.”

Rogers suggested other possibilities: Hicksville, East Meadow and Farmingdale. The school populations in those communities were 33 percent white, 54 percent white and 65 percent white – compared with higher than 70 percent in Plainview and Bethpage. She did not mention Hicksville, East Meadow and Farmingdale to Congiano.

Rogers talked about school districts with both Congiano and Tune, providing different information.

Speaking with Congiano, Rogers said Plainview and Bethpage both “have the good school districts.”

“They have very high ratings for Plainview, you know, Plainview, Bethpage,” she said, “Actually, I think Bethpage did really, really well. They might have even surpassed Plainview, to be honest with you.”

She added: “And I’m a mom, so I know, you know what I mean? So, look, you know, when you’re looking for a house, especially when you have a child, that has to be like, you know, number one no matter what. You know, you want a good school district.”

In contrast, while speaking with Tune, Rogers said nothing about the quality of the Plainview or Bethpage schools as a selling point. Instead, she told him, “You need to do research on school districts” by consulting ratings that are available online.

She also counseled Tune to take the ratings “with a grain of salt.” Showing him one such computation, she noted that Garden City High School was rated at 96.2 while East Islip scored 70.9.

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just — it’s just giving you a basic idea, OK?” Rogers said, adding: “They’re all good schools. You just – you know, just some of the ratings are different. That’s all.”

Rogers provided listings that directed Tune as far as 10 miles away from Plainview while centering Congiano there and in Bethpage.

She located Congiano in areas with a higher percentage of whites than in the areas she suggested to Tune. Additionally, she placed Tune in school districts with higher minority representations.

Congiano’s listings – five in Plainview, five in Bethpage – fell in census tracts where whites made up 82 percent of the population.

Tune’s listings – a total of 11 spread among Hicksville, Levittown, Bethpage, East Meadow and Farmingdale – landed in tracts where whites had a 10 percentage-point smaller share of the population at 72 percent. Rogers included none in Plainview.

Drawing on data it purchases from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, the system used by the Island’s real estate industry to market homes, Zillow computed that more than 30 houses were on the market in the Plainview ZIP code on the dates of both tests.

“It makes me feel almost sick to my stomach that she did it, because that’s, in my perception, I see that as steering him away. But I am not shocked about it. I’m not shocked because she did do it subtly,” Congiano said on learning the test results.

Experts’ Opinions Freiberg: The agent’s comments and conduct suggest racial steering. The agent was willing to provide an unqualified opinion on the high quality of schools in certain areas to the white tester, while telling the African American tester to do his own research on schools and cautioning that online school ratings may not be the best indicators of school quality. The agent provided home listings to the African American tester that were in areas with slightly larger minority populations served by school districts with a larger minority student population when compared to the home listings the agent provided to the white tester. For instance, the agent did not select any listings for the African American tester in Plainview (where the agent has resided) and discouraged him from considering Plainview based on his price range, but the same agent provided the white tester with home listings in Plainview in the same price range. Schwemm: The facts show steering not so much regarding the number of listings in white areas, but the zero listings for the black tester in Plainview while the white tester got lots there.