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Third
Fernanda Namur (28) has been living with a friend from university for a year in an apartment where, she says, they are very comfortable and they like it. But unfortunately a few months ago they were asked to leave it; not because they are bad tenants, the reason is that they are going to sell it and they were given three months to get out of there.
Thus began his search for a new place to live. “We started quietly, thinking that it would be easy, but apparently the social context in the midst of a pandemic and political and economic uncertainty made us find ourselves with greater requirements,” he says. However, Fernanda and her friend complied. But they closed the door on us over and over once more.
She remembers that in the first apartment that they liked to rent, they brought all the necessary papers to demonstrate that adding the income of her and her friends with whom she would live was enough for them. But they still told them no, and suggested that her father, whom they had already presented as a guarantor, be the one to rent for them. “The three of us are psychologists, graduated from a recognized university, with various incomes. Anyone can deduce from the documents we present that we are able to pay the rent, but they told us no,” she says.
According to the real estate broker, the owners of the apartment are an older couple who do not understand that women who have graduated from university want to live alone, for them the normal traffic in life is to leave their parents’ house engaged or married. But that, which might have been an exception, became common. “The brokers themselves asked us from the beginning if my father might be the one to rent. There we realized that we were being discriminated once morest due to gender bias and that it was no coincidence that they rejected us.”
Fernanda remembers that in the following apartments in which they tried to rent, they had to answer questions such as: Do you plan to get married soon and have children? According to them, those were the questions that justified not trusting them and asking them to let their father do the leasing. “In each place that this happened to us, we explained to them that there is a contract involved, guarantees and that there are all the legal safeguards, which caused us impotence because, in theory, the brokers should already know that,” she says. And she adds that even so, they understood that what rules are the prejudices of the owners of the property, which made them feel that their money is worth less than that of a man.
At that point the situation was critical and they were desperate because they had to deliver the apartment in a few days. “We offered a broker to pay him the full year of rent in cash, accepting all the conditions that they put us. Even that was not enough, he did not accept. The solution they proposed was for my father to sign the contract for us. I refused that, but in a moment of desperation I asked him. Very embarrassed, I talked to my dad to ask him if he was willing to do it. Deep down I knew that it was, but I was ashamed and angry to think that it wasn’t enough for the world.”
Finally the latter was not necessary. Fernanda and her friends found a new apartment where they accepted that they sign as tenants just two days before having to leave the previous one. “It was a very critical situation and once morest time, we felt vulnerable, because in the end, we were regarding to be left without a place to live. I think we only made it because we insisted a lot that my dad would be the guarantor and that he was willing to respond to any problem. Something that we are convinced will not happen, but we had to say it.”
For Pamela Gutiérrez, a broker specializing in rentals, who has been in the business for 11 years, these situations of discrimination are common and occur because landlords are prejudiced. “In the end, the owners choose candidates who cause them less problems, either because of the noise, the deterioration of the property or because there are not many who live there, but in the end it is regarding prejudice. When girls like Fernanda and her friends come to rent, I try to get the owners to know them so that they understand each other better and get rid of prejudice, but in the end they are the ones who make that decision and that is why many times they have rejected me anyway. As a broker and a woman, I try to help in this process to convince property owners to rent to them, for example, separated women, those with children, who also often have problems renting. I do PR work to make it work,” she assures.
“The last apartment that turned us down for being young women has so far not been leased. When I walk outside and see that the ‘For Lease’ sign is still there, I think that the owners would rather have it there than lease it to three women. It reminds me of the position of women in the world, regardless of who you are or what you do. Being told directly that because you’re a woman they don’t trust you, it’s like having a bucket of cold water thrown at you. I am clear that I am a tremendously privileged person and that my life is many times easier than that of other people. But if it happened to me, under these conditions, what is left for the other 80% of Chile? And for migrant women, women of color, women with children, and poor women? We still have a long way to go”, concludes Fernanda.
