Datamining a Flat in Munich • Hacker News Board

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#121

Post by lordbusiness » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

tomek_zemla wrote: post #92

lordbusiness wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a significant portion of the book so to summarize in a tiny comment will likely not do justice to the concept. However, I'll try. :-) In essence, maven comes from Yiddish, and it means "one who accumulates knowledge". Economists spend a lot of time studying mavens and their habits. Mavens are the people who will analyze every big screen TV on the market, pouring over data, correcting consumer report articles on…

You just made me want to read this book... Thank you.

You won't regret it!

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#122

Post by saosebastiao » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 4:37 PM UTC

lafar6502 wrote: post #119

saosebastiao wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, yes you can be forced. If you have an open offer to rent, and you refuse a qualified tenant on illegal discriminatory grounds, a judge can force you to hold true to that offer.

First of all, they'd have to prove I did something illegal. What makes you think so? Hopefully we still have the right to say just "sorry, I changed my mind, the offer is no longer valid" or "I chose another offer, sorry".

Well, enforcement always was the problem with anti-discrimination laws. But when it is provable in court, you can't just drop the offer. That would be considered a fraudulent offer. In fact, that is one of the few ways that discriminatory landlords are caught: they rescind an open offer after a someone disagreeable applies, and then reopen it later for someone more agreeable.

Property rights aren't absolute. They certainly don't trump civil rights, and anti-discrimination laws are amongst the core of our civil rights laws.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#123

Post by saosebastiao » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 4:59 PM UTC

lafar6502 wrote: post #117

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you base your comfortableness with giving the access to your property to someone, not on their rental history, or credit info or interview, but on the fact that they are say, black, you are discriminating, and you are probably a racist.

Maybe i base my decision on flipping a coin? That's certainly not your (or anyone else's) business - the point is I can do that because until I sign a rental contract I'm free to do whatever I want. There's no contract - there's no legal binding between the owner and a 'candidate'. Any obligations, duties and rights start after the deal is made.

Wrong. Your obligations and duties start the second you make an offer. You may not have obligations to a tenant that doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean you don't have to comply with the applicable laws.

Based off of your opinions in this thread, I highly suggest that you never rent out your property. Your opinions on what the law says will likely end up with you in jail.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#124

Post by rmc » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 5:10 PM UTC

lafar6502 wrote: post #119

saosebastiao wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, yes you can be forced. If you have an open offer to rent, and you refuse a qualified tenant on illegal discriminatory grounds, a judge can force you to hold true to that offer.

First of all, they'd have to prove I did something illegal. What makes you think so? Hopefully we still have the right to say just "sorry, I changed my mind, the offer is no longer valid" or "I chose another offer, sorry".

The same way they prove any other type of crime. Sometimes people are blatant (e.g. the english hoteliers who refused to rent a room to a same sex couple), or when you put other facts together it becomes obvious (e.g. at 1:00pm the landlord tells someone with a foreign accent that it's unavailable, but at 3:00pm they tell someone with a different accent that it's available), or sometimes an offer is withdrawn when a certain fact becomes known (e.g. everything is going great until the prospective tenant says he has to call his husband)

You do not have "the right" to choose to not rent your property to someone. If you think it's one of your rights, and you're in the property market, you should talk to a lawyer.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#125

Post by rasz_pl » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #19

mironathetin wrote: post #15

Cool post. We want to buy something in Munich and indeed, even if you are prepared to spend a million or more, it is extremely hard to get an invitation to visit a place (Even if you are in the right age and your wife is an italian girl, like mine). It would be really cool to outwit the real estate dealers in the way you did it. I keep thinking. Ideas are welcome.

They didn't outwit the dealers, they "outwitted" other people looking for flats by crowding them out via spamming the dealers.

Not really, TLDR says he found his apartment thru friends in the end, so all this crawling was for nothing.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#126

Post by JabavuAdams » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

sauere wrote: post #17

petercooper wrote: post #5

The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25 Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. Across Europe, numerous anti-discrimination laws have been (rightfully) enacted, but it just pushes any inclination to discriminate that might exist into pri…

Anti-discrimination laws do not solve any problems, they make them worse. If someone is not willing to hire a person because of their ethnicity/color/sex/age/whatever, a law will not make him do it. Finding an excuse is too easy and it is basically impossible to prove such things in court. I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzXXvUjg8Fo

I don't speed when I think there's a police speed-trap on a given road. I don't tell lewd jokes in front of strangers. People modify their behaviour to avoid negative consequences.

You don't need to change their deep thinking, necessarily. Just their behaviour. That starts the social change.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#127

Post by JabavuAdams » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

hippich wrote: post #76

tzmudzin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, as long as we as a society want to protect the minorities. Either you force equal treatment, or things can escalate quite quickly: - basic right of owner to rent property to anyone he likes without explaining the decision (and not to rent to anyone else...) - basic right of hotel owner to accept anyone he choses (and deny access to anyone else) - basic right of restarant manager to accept anyone he chooses…

I wonder why economic laws does not work here? I.e. if certain categories of people comes with certain risk in the eyes of landlords, this should be reflected in price, and who don't want to have to deal with adjusting price for risks should loose to once who are more flexible?

Because people aren't rational actors. Economics can't tell us what kind of society we want, nor even help us to estimate risks realistically when cultural biases are at play.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#128

Post by JabavuAdams » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

neptunus wrote: post #85

anvarik wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the heck shouldn't I classify this as discrimination? He tried Hans, an Italian female name, and his own, I believe is Karim. And he gets less replies than any other. He probably wrote a pretty darn good e-mail saying how educated and well-behaved he is, bla bla from Paris have degrees etc, but guess what, no replies. Just because of his name! That is what I call discrimination, and in Germany it is pretty common…

What if the tenants have had more bad experiences with male arab tenants and more good experiences with female italians? Could it be called "science" instead of "discrimination"?

No, because they did not look at him as an individual after categorizing him. This is exactly discrimination.

For example, why would anyone expect the same behaviour from a single black criminal drug-addict as from a married black lawyer with kids? The fact that they share the same skin-tone is the least important hint to their potential behaviour, and yet, historically, it's what people use because it's the first thing they see.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#129

Post by beachstartup » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 6:04 PM UTC

MadManE wrote: post #70

richthegeek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst there is no reason to disbelieve the core tenet of this article (white guys have better chances than hispanic guys in that region), the extreme hyperbole employed doesn't help the message. Months without any replies (like, 0.1% response rate) turned into a 90% response rate due to just a name change is difficult to believe and doesn't jibe with other more stringent research.

While hard to believe, it is still true. I graduated with a BSME from Nebraska, and my first name is Earle. I went for ~3 months without any responses to resumes or applications, until I added my middle name. I started working a new job within two weeks, and now have to go by my middle name at work. All because "Earle from Nebraska" must be a redneck hick. My case is almost certainly not racially motivated, but liter…

it's not race, it's culture - which usually involves race, but not always, in your case. change your name to 'bubba' or 'cletus' and try to land some interviews with a company based in the northeast.

i'm an asian guy with an ultra generic anglo first and last name and i've never really had any trouble getting interviews. in fact when i show up and i'm asian they usually have a nice little chuckle and are pleasantly surprised. generally asians in technology at the worker-level don't get discriminated against unless they have thick accents (which i don't).

i've seen resumes with asian first/last names that have a note under the name that says "natural born US citizen, authorized to work anywhere in the US and territories" or something to that effect. it's a good thing, in my opinion. it signals multiple things in one neat little sentence.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#130

Post by cuillevel3 » Wed, Sep 24, 2014, 6:09 PM UTC

davidroetzel wrote: post #37

I do not know about the situation in Munich, but I spent lots of time looking for a place in Bonn last year and from my experience the approach from the article has one serious flaw: While the real estate websites offer contact forms to send e-mails, many people hate dealing with e-mails. Landlords and even "professional" real estate agents often ignore e-mails. Sometimes it is because of the sheer volume they get, b…

We tried to rent an appartment in Cologne. Took us nearly a year. I would never again try to rent from private landlords.

But once we decided it's okay for us to pay provision we got a nice new flat from a company within 2 month. The credit of the provision basically raises the rent for the first few years, but at least we didn't have to deal with landlords anymore. There were too much forms, credit checks and awkward talks.