After more than 40 years in the real estate business, Ivan Brown is closing Ivan Brown Realty. “Retirement means I can do nothing or other things, until the money runs out,” he quipped with his familiar chuckle.

Real estate broker Brown opened Ivan Brown Realty at 3211 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, in Washington, D.C., in October 2000. He opened the real estate company after getting his real estate license in 1984 and working for 16 years with DEAR (the acronym for Don Edwards and Associates Realty).

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One of the effects of desegregation, says Brown, is that Black agents often have to compete with White agents for Black customers, but the opportunity to serve and earn income doesn’t happen as often in the reverse.

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“When Don Edwards retired, I opened the company to keep our team of real estate agents together,” he says. DEAR Realty was then located across the street from his new office in the Penn Branch Shopping Center.  

As a broker, Brown has an advanced license that allows him to work independently, manage his own brokerage, and supervise real estate agents. Real estate agents, like brokers, help clients buy, sell, and rent properties, but they must work under a broker.

The native Washingtonian also managed properties.  As a property manager, “You are on duty 24 hours,” he said with a sigh, knowing those responsibilities will no longer be his.

When Brown entered the business in 1984, the Fair Housing Act had been the law for only 16 years. President Lyndon Johnson signed The Act, officially Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, into law on April 11, 1968. He signed it seven days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  

The Act’s primary goals are to prohibit discrimination in the sale, rental, financing, and insurance of housing. The law officially ended legal housing segregation.

Despite the end of legal segregation, most Black agents, homebuyers, home sellers, and renters operate in an improved, but still racially segregated America. The most widely used measure (the dissimilarity index) shows segregation peaked in 1960–1970 at nearly 80 and fell to 55 by 2020.

One of the effects of desegregation, says Brown, is that Black agents often have to compete with White agents for Black customers, but the opportunity to serve and earn income doesn’t happen as often in the reverse. In the decades he was in business, Brown recalls having only about five White clients and a time when White real estate companies would not hire Black agents, and then only part-time.

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However, desegregation has made it easier for him to obtain mortgages for his clients. In earlier times, experience taught him not to waste time with now-defunct lenders such as Riggs Bank. “We always had mortgage companies we knew we could go to and Industrial Bank,” he recalls.

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Legally, NAREB members are Realtists, while members of the historically White National Association of Realtors (NAR) are Realtors.

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Even with more integration, America’s racial history still matters in other ways, too. Many Black agents, such as Brown, belong to the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB). NAREB started in 1947 to secure the right to equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or color.

Legally, NAREB members are Realtists, while members of the historically White National Association of Realtors (NAR) are Realtors. NAR began accepting Black members in 1948, approximately one year after NAREB was founded.

However, Brown says technology has been the biggest change in the industry. As a specialist with first-time home buyers, Brown is used to preparing clients for the biggest investment most Americans make in their lives. Now, he says, many homebuyers depend on the internet to prepare themselves, including getting pre-qualified with a lender.

“The personal stuff is almost taking out of it,” he says. Brown says he is “old school” and used to working with one agent per client, who knows everything about the transaction. “Now, they work in teams, and I have to go through two or three people to get something done.” With a sigh, he added, “It’s not fun anymore.”