It is 9pm, the photos are uploaded, and you are typing the description for a one-bedroom over a bakery. "Perfect for a young professional." You mean it kindly. You have also just described a person instead of an apartment, and that is the whole problem.
The rule is one sentence long
The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to publish any notice, statement or advertisement about selling or renting a dwelling "that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin." Seven federal classes, and the statute does not care whether you meant it.
HUD's regulation spells out what counts. 24 CFR 100.75 lists "words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols or forms which convey that dwellings are available or not available to a particular group of persons", and separately, "selecting media or locations for advertising" that deny particular segments of the market information about the housing. So the photos count, and where you post counts, not only the sentence.
The working test: describe the property, never the person who should live in it. Every phrase below fails that test, and every fix passes it.
The phrases that get flagged
| You wrote | The problem | Write instead |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect for young professionals | Age, familial status | One-bedroom, 12 minutes to downtown on the Blue Line |
| No kids / adults only / quiet building, no families | Familial status | Two-bedroom, 850 sq ft, second floor |
| Ideal for a single person or couple | Familial status | Studio with a full kitchen |
| Walking distance to St. Mark's | Religion | 0.3 miles to Main Street shops, bus and park |
| Great for empty nesters | Familial status, age | Single level, no stairs, low-maintenance yard |
| Not suitable for wheelchairs | Handicap | Third-floor unit, walk-up, no elevator |
| English-speaking tenants preferred | National origin | Remove it. There is no fix |
| Christian home | Religion | Remove it |
The right-hand column is also more useful. "Twelve minutes to downtown on the Blue Line" sells the apartment to the young professional you had in mind and to everyone else, and it is a fact somebody can check.
State and city lists are longer than the federal one
The seven federal classes are the floor. New York's fair housing page adds age, marital status, military status, sexual orientation, lawful source of income, domestic violence status, gender identity or expression and more, and it names "no children", "adults preferred" and "mature couples only" as examples of discriminatory ads. "No Section 8" is a lawful-source-of-income problem in a growing number of states and cities.
Check your own state's list once. It is the list a complaint will be measured against.
Rentals are where it goes wrong
The sale listing is written by a professional and read by a buyer's agent. The rental ad is written at 9pm by whoever is free and read by the tenant directly, and familial status is the usual failure: "no kids", "perfect for a single", "quiet adult building".
If a unit is small, say the square footage and the bedroom count. If the local code sets an occupancy limit, state it as the code's limit, not as a preference. If the building qualifies for the Act's housing-for-older-persons exemption, you already have the paperwork that says so; if you are not sure, do not write "55+".
Photos and placement
Pictures of the property are always safe; pictures of people are a choice, and if your site shows residents, show a range of them. Advertising a unit only in one language, one congregation's newsletter or one neighborhood group is the "selecting media" problem in the regulation, however innocent the reason.
Write it once, properly, and reuse it
The temptation is to be careful on the MLS and loose on your own site and social posts, because those feel informal. They are advertisements under the same statute. Write the description once with the property-not-person test applied, and paste the same text everywhere.
On a real estate agent site built here the listing has one description field, so the version you took care over is the one visitors read. How to write a property listing covers the rest of the writing, and advertising a rental property online covers where to put it.
FAQ
Can a listing say "no pets"?
Yes. Pets are not a protected class. Assistance animals are different: a request for one is handled as a reasonable accommodation when it arrives, not in the ad. "No pets" is fine; "no pets, no exceptions" invites an argument you do not want.
Is "walking distance to" ever a problem?
The distance is not the problem; the destination can be. Walking distance to a train station, a grocery store or a park describes the location. Walking distance to one named church describes the congregation you expect to live there.
Who is on the hook for the wording, the agent or the owner?
The statute covers whoever makes, prints or publishes the ad, and a complaint names everybody in the chain. The agent who typed it and the owner who approved it should both read it with the same test.