White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent a home than black people, Sky News has learned.
Exclusive figures provided by Generation Rent show apparent racism currently in the rentalmarket.
The campaign organisation used artificial intelligence to set up two fake profiles, a black and a white one, on the rental website SpareRoom. The only differences in their details were their names and skin colour.
Enquiries were sent out by both profiles to property adverts randomly selected across the UK, within minutes of each other, with different responses.
Analysis of more than 210 adverts found that the white facing profile was 36% more likely to receive a positive response than the black facing profile.
The white profile was also 17% more likely than the black profile to receive any response at all.
Image: Generation Rent made applications to the same properties with two AI-generated accounts: One with a white woman and one with a black woman.
In one example the same message was sent by both profiles enquiring about a room in a townhouse.
More on London
Related Topics:
“Hi there, I’m interested in the property, could I arrange a viewing please?” it read.
The white profile, named Lizzie, received this response: “Hi Lizzie, can you tell me a little about how long you would be looking for the room, do you work local etc. Many Thanks.”
Advertisement
The black profile, called Zuri, received a different message stating simply: “Hello, sorry it’s just been let.”
Paris Williams, 25, has been living in a HMO (house of multiple occupancy) in Londonfor the past two years and describes racism as a barrier to finding somewhere better to rent.
“I’ve had my passport inspected,” she says, “(they asked) ‘is it really a British passport? You can’t be British’, but why can’t I be British?
“And then when you’re going house searching [they] ask ‘do you smoke weed? Because I have black tenants who smoke weed’.
“So you’re stuck. You know that you’ve got bad conditions here but you can’t move.”
Paris says the situation she is living in is “hell”.
Image: Paris believes racism has been a barrier to her finding somewhere better to rent
The policy adviser sleeps with an alarm under her room door because she feels unsafe as the front door to the HMO is often left open by other tenants.
She has previously found a stranger in her hallway and once discovered an unknown man taking a shower in her shared bathroom.
“He was clearly visibly homeless,” she says. “He was wet, he didn’t use a towel, he had no socks on. [He said] ‘well your door was open so i just thought I could’.”
In the last two years she has applied for multiple rentals, even changing her clothes, “stripping back” her makeup, and tying her hair back for viewings.
She says she can afford to rent somewhere better because the feeling of being unsafe in her own home is “gut wrenching”.
“I describe it as fight or flight, you’re never really calm, you’re tense, you’re always waiting for something to happen.
“Every little noise – is that something? is it not?”
Tilly Smith, campaigns and partnerships officer from Generation Rent, helped carry out the AI profile research after suspecting discrimination in the rental market.
She describes the knock-on effect it is having, in a broader sense, on ethnic minority groups looking for somewhere to live.
“They’ve been forced into this sort of wild west hostile marketplace where they may or may not be able to find a property,” she said.
“So people become very placid and they feel they have to put up with poor quality housing with poor standards, with mould-ridden properties, with disrepair.
“There is the devastating issue of stress and worry of finding somewhere to live.
“There is also the more long-term enduring issue of people who are black, Asian, or minority ethnic who feel they have to put up with terrible conditions.”
In a statement SpareRoom said their “discrimination policy states nobody can discriminate against or reject someone due to their race.
“We look into every single report of discrimination we receive and investigate thoroughly – if we find that racial discrimination has occurred we’ll remove the user permanently.”
While racism in renting is not a new issue it is believed that it may be getting worse due to the low supply of private rentals available verses demand.
Jabeer Butt OBE, chief executive of the Race Equality Foundation, says competition for “a smaller and smaller resource” may be making things worse.
“You can imagine racism is going to be at the forefront of that sort of thing,” he said.
“But then the reality also is that we know what the solutions are, we know what we can do to make it better.
“We know a significant programme of building social housing will change the whole dynamic of the housing crisis that we face…we’re not even managing to build affordable housing to the scale that we’re meant to be doing.
“And until we do that, the current crisis will carry on or potentially get worse.”
English cricket’s governing body will on Wednesday hail a landmark moment for the sport when it announces that three-quarters of the deals to bring in new investors to The Hundred have been completed.
Sky News understands that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) plans to issue a statement confirming that it has received proceeds from the sale of stakes in Birmingham Phoenix, London Spirit, Manchester Originals, Northern Superchargers, Southern Brave and Welsh Fire.
The two other franchise deals – involving the Oval Invincibles and Nottinghamshire’s Trent Rockets – will be completed on October 1, the ECB is expected to say.
One insider said a statement was likely to be issued on Wednesday, although they cautioned that the timing could slip.
When all eight deals are concluded, they will generate a collective windfall of £520m for the sport’s strained coffers.
One of the outstanding issues relates to the name under which the Oval Invincibles will play in future years, with the Ambani family keen to use a derivative of the Mumbai Indians brand that it also owns.
More on The Hundred
Related Topics:
This week’s announcement will come after months of talks after the ECB and the eight Hundred-playing counties agreed exclusivity periods with their preferred investors.
The backers include some of the world’s most prominent financiers, billionaires and technology executives.
Following protracted talks, the ECB has agreed to revised terms with the investors, with host venues now retaining control of their teams’ intellectual property rights.
The investors will also hold an effective veto over future expansion of the Hundred, while the ECB will be barred from launching any other short-form professional version of the sport while the Hundred remains operational.
Meanwhile, the governing body will retain full ownership of the competition itself as well as controlling the regulation of it and the window within which it can be played each year.
The ECB has been waiting for investors in the eight franchises to sign participation agreements since an auction in February, which valued the participating teams at just over £975m.
Some of the deals involve the investors owning 49% of their respective franchise, while India’s Sun TV Network has taken full ownership of Yorkshire’s Northern Superchargers.
The proceeds of its stake sales will be distributed to all of English cricket’s professional counties as well as £50m being delivered to the grassroots game.
The windfalls are being seen as a lifeline for many cash-strapped counties which have been struggling under significant debt piles for many years.
The most valuable Hundred sale saw a group of technology tycoons, including executives from Google and Microsoft, paying about £145m for a 49% stake in Lord’s-based London Spirit.
This year’s tournament kicks off next week with fixtures including a clash between the two London-based franchises.
The intense financial pressure facing Britain’s casual dining sector will be underlined this week when Gusto, the Italian restaurant chain, falls into administration.
Sky News has learnt that Interpath Advisory is preparing a pre-pack insolvency of Gusto, which trades from 13 sites.
Sources said that a vehicle set up by Cherry Equity Partners, the owner of Latin American restaurant concept Cabana, was the likely buyer.
It is expected to take over most of Gusto’s sites although some job losses are likely.
A deal could be announced in the coming days, according to insiders.
The collapse of Gusto, which is backed by private equity investor Palatine, follows a string of increasingly heated warnings from hospitality executives about the impact of tax rises on the sector.
More from Money
Kate Nicholls, who chairs UK Hospitality, said this month that the industry faced a jobs bloodbath amid growing financial pressure on operators.
This week, Sky News reported that the restaurant industry veteran David Page, a former boss of PizzaExpress, was raising £10m to take advantage of cut-price acquisition opportunities in casual dining.
Mr Page is planning to become executive chairman of London-listed Tasty, which owns Wildwood and dim t, and rename it Bow Street Group.
A placing of shares in the company is likely to be completed this week.
Interpath declined to comment on the Gusto process.
TPG, the American private equity giant, is in advanced talks to take a stake in Tide, the British-based digital banking services platform.
Sky News has learnt that TPG, which manages more than $250bn in assets, is discussing acquiring a significant shareholding in the company.
Sources said that Tide’s existing investors were expected to sell shares to TPG, while a separate deal would involve another existing shareholder in the company acquiring newly issued shares.
The two transactions may be conducted at different valuations, although both are likely to see the company valued at at least $1bn, the sources added.
The size of TPG’s prospective stake in Tide was unclear on Monday.
Earlier this year, Sky News reported that Tide had been negotiating the terms of an investment from Apis Partners, a prolific investor in the fintech sector, although it was unclear whether this would now proceed.
Tide has roughly 650,000 SME customers in both Britain and India, with the latter market expanding at a faster rate.
More from Money
Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank, has been advising Tide on its fundraising.
Tide was founded in 2015 by George Bevis and Errol Damelin, before launching two years later.
It describes itself as the leading business financial platform in the UK, offering business accounts and related banking services.
The company also provides its SME ‘members’ in the UK a set of connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting.
It now boasts a roughly 11% SME banking market share in Britain.