BUFFALO, N.Y. — If anyone knows Buffalo’s real estate market, it is East Side native Keith Barnes, who has been helping residents find their dream homes for more than three decades.
He is part of a small demographic: 7.5 percent. That is the portion of America’s 1.2 million real estate brokers and sales agents who are Black, according to Census estimates.
The job gives Barnes, 53, whose Barnes Real Estate Group is located off Genesee Street, a firsthand look at how Buffalo’s housing market has changed, why its Black homeownership rate has stagnated, and what more can be done.