White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent on SpareRoom than black people | UK News
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 rental markets.
The campaign organization 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 color.
Inquiries were sent out by both profiles to property ads randomly selected across the UK, within minutes of each other, with different responses.
Analysis of more than 210 ads 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.
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 asking about a room in a townhouse.
“Hi there, I’m interested in the property, could I arrange a viewing please?” it read.
The white profile, named Lizzie,