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Las Vegas MLS promotes Fair Housing compliance

The Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® will soon be rolling out a system to check the Directions, Remarks, and Agent-to-Agent Remarks fields in MLS listings for words that may trigger Fair Housing violations. Designed to protect both brokers and agents, the system will not allow a listing to be entered that contains Prohibited words. It will also highight potential Warning words so they can be changed.

Fair Housing logo The list of Prohibited words includes:

active
adult community
board approval required
couple
empty nesters
preferred community
senior discount
traditional neighborhood

The list of Warning words includes:

55 and older, 62 and older
close to
desirable neighborhood
exclusive
executive
handyman's dream
ideal for, perfect for
private
safe neighborhood
secluded
secure
tranquil setting

While we should all be aware of the protected classes (race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, handicap) under Fair Housing Law, some of the words on these lists surprised me. If you write or are responsible for approving real estate advertising, please keep these lists handy. Further info on Fair Housing is available at FairHousingLaw.org.

Posted by John Novak - Las Vegas and Henderson NV Real Estate on 06/01/2007 09:42 PM

Comments (10)

fair housing, marketing, online marketing

Originally posted at: Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas Real Estate: Las Vegas MLS promotes Fair Housing compliance

10 Comments on Las Vegas MLS promotes Fair Housing compliance

JUN

2007

How will they deal with the federal protection for age-restricted housing? Do you have to leave that out? I know you have a lot of age qualified communitys just like we do, I will be interested in seeing how they deal with that. Must be a California idea.

We received something similar from our title company newsletter about some pretty iffy terminology that surprised me as well. "Custom" was one them, which surprised me. Its good to know though, I write this stuff all the time. Thanks for posting in our group.

This is the first I've heard of it. I live in a "55 and over" community in Southern California, Riverside County, and do quite a bit of my business here. It will be very interesting to see what happens with this.

Jim - I don't see "age-restricted" on either list. I think what they're trying to avoid is specific ages (55 or 62), as well as categories (adult, senior).

Laura - It seems that most of the words on the list are attributes of people. "Custom" only describes the house. What do they suggest that you use instead?

John - The standard term here is "age-restricted." A common rule is one resident must be 55 or older and there can be no children under the age of 18. I'll have to check and see what words our developers are marketing these communities.

I'm just curious, how will you be able to market a home in a community that only allows residents that are age 55+ if you aren't allowed to state so?

Chris - "Age-restricted" is OK for us to use. I checked the website for Del Webb, and it says they are "one of the country's leading builders of active adult communities." I'm sure once the system goes live we'll have a few questions for clarification.

John~ there wasn't any info on an alternative term, it was coined a "red flag term"

We have a system in place for this, with our local MLS. I like it ... a lot of accountability.

JUN

2007

John -- Great Information!

FEB

Good morning, John. Great posting! Real estate professionals everywhere seem to often forget some of the basic tenets of the various fair housing laws. It's good to see a post like yours that reminds everyone of their obligations, especially in advertising.

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