Opinion ID: 562670
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Affirmative Marketing

Text: 12 This action originated as a result of the Realtors' reaction to South-Suburban Housing Center's attempts to promote a racial balance in the Village of Park Forest through making special efforts to interest white home buyers in property there. The current racial imbalance came about during the 1970s when many black families moved into an area in the northeast corner of the Village of Park Forest, Illinois known as the Eastgate subdivision. At the time of the 1980 census, the census block including the homes at issue here had become more than fifty-six percent black, more than double the black population of any other census block in the Eastgate subdivision. As a result of the area's reputation as a black block, few white families were interested in buying property. The area became less attractive to home buyers as VA and FHA mortgage foreclosures led to abandoned homes and neighborhood blight. See South-Suburban Housing Center, 713 F.Supp. at 1076. In response to the problem of abandoned homes in the Eastgate subdivision, in 1982 the Village of Park Forest instituted a program of purchasing vacant or abandoned homes for rehabilitation and resale, including vacant homes at numbers 9, 15 and 26 Apache Street. SSHC submitted a proposal, which included affirmative marketing, to Park Forest for the acquisition, rehabilitation and resale of these three homes. 13 After the Park Forest Board of Trustees accepted the proposal and sold the homes to the South-Suburan Housing Center, the SSHC agreed to list the homes for sale with Century 21-Host Realty through one of its salesmen, William H. Motluck. The parties utilized a standard real estate contract form with the exception of provisions that Century 21-Host Realty was to implement the affirmative marketing plan attached as appendix. In addition to securing a buyer, Century 21-Host Realty's receipt of a commission was conditioned upon its performance of the attached affirmative marketing plan. 14 The affirmative marketing plan (AMP) directed that the realtor use its best efforts to attract minority and majority groups persons to the particular Apache Street home, and stated that the SSHC and the Realtor agree that white home seekers are not likely without special outreach efforts to be attracted to the Apache St. home. The AMP also provided that the Realtor would use the following special outreach activities to attract white home seekers to the Apache Street home: 15 A. Placement of advertisements in newspapers with a predominantly white circulation; 16