Fair housing rules for real estate websites, ads and chatbots.

The short answer

Section 804(c) of the Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement about the sale or rental of a home that indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, disability, familial status or national origin, or an intention to make one. Familial status means households with children under 18, including people who are pregnant or getting custody of a child.

HUD's regulation on discriminatory advertising, 24 CFR 100.75, spells it out. It covers written and spoken statements by anyone in the business of selling or renting homes, the words, photos and symbols in an ad, and the choice of where an ad runs.

The rest of this guide covers listings and pages, ad targeting, and the answers agents and a chatbot give when someone asks about an area.

This guide explains the Act and HUD's rules in general terms. It is not legal advice. Your broker of record, your state's real estate commission or a fair housing lawyer can answer for your listings and your market.

Who and what the rule covers

The advertising rule applies to whoever makes or publishes the statement. A seller who asks you to word a listing their way does not change what you may write, and a portal that publishes your listing does not take the responsibility off you.

It also reaches further than the rest of the Act. The Act exempts some owners from most of its rules, such as an owner selling a few houses of their own without an agent, or renting rooms in a small building where they live. Those exemptions do not cover advertising: section 804(c) still applies to them.

Everything that tells the public about a home counts:

• Listings on your website and on the portals.
• Area and community pages, blog posts and email alerts.
• Social media posts, video tours and their captions.
• Flyers, signs, brochures and application forms.
• Paid ads, including who you choose to show them to.
• What agents say in person or on the phone, and what a chatbot says in a chat.

Wording to avoid, and what to write instead

The test is simple to say and easy to miss: does the wording describe the home, or the people who should or should not live in it? These lines describe people, and each points at a protected group:

• Familial status: "adults only", "no children", "perfect for a young professional couple", "ideal for empty nesters", "not suitable for families".
• Religion: "Christian home", "ideal for a Jewish family", "close-knit Catholic community".
• National origin and race: "English speakers only", "great for Asian buyers", any description of the neighbours by ethnicity.
• Disability: "no wheelchairs", "must be able to climb stairs", "not suitable for anyone with mental health problems".
• Sex: "female tenants only" in an ordinary rental, or "perfect for a man who wants a quiet life".

Write facts a buyer can check instead: three bedrooms, a fenced garden, a third-floor flat with no lift, a step-free entrance, ten minutes' walk to the station, the school district by name. Describing the building is the safe ground, even when a fact matters more to some people than others. "No lift, three flights of stairs" describes the home. "Not suitable for older people" describes the buyer.

Photos count too. The regulation lists photographs, illustrations and symbols alongside words, so if every picture of people on your site shows the same kind of household, the pictures can say what the text avoids.

One exception: housing that qualifies as housing for older persons under the Act, such as a community for people 55 and over that meets the Act's conditions, may say so. Ask the community for its paperwork before you write "55 and over" in a listing.

Steering: what agents say when someone asks

HUD's regulation on steering, 24 CFR 100.70, bars restricting a person's choices by word or conduct because of a protected characteristic. Its examples include discouraging someone from viewing or buying a home because of the people who live in an area, exaggerating the drawbacks of a home or leaving out its good points, and assigning people to a particular part of a community.

Most steering on a website happens in answers to questions that sound harmless:

• "Is it a good area for kids?"
• "Is it safe around there at night?"
• "What are the neighbours like?"
• "Are there many families like ours?"
• "Is there a church nearby? We're Catholic."

An agent who answers "you'd be happier in the next town" has steered, however kind the intent. The answer that keeps you clear gives the same facts to everyone and points to sources the buyer can read: the school district's own website, the local police department's published crime data, a map of parks, churches and transport. The buyer decides what is a good area for them.

Give every enquirer the same questions and the same listings for the same budget and needs. Inconsistency is how steering shows up when someone tests an agency with two similar enquiries.

Ad targeting on Meta and Google

The advertising regulation also covers where an ad runs: choosing media or locations so that some groups do not hear about available homes is on its list of prohibited actions. Online, that means your targeting settings.

Meta's housing category limits targeting for advertisers based in the US and for ads reaching the US, Canada or Europe. Meta's developer documentation sets out what changes:

• Ages are fixed to include 18 to 65 and over, and you cannot pick a gender.
• You cannot target by ZIP code or exclude locations, and any location you choose covers at least a 15-mile radius in the US and Canada, or 15 kilometres in Europe.
• Detailed targeting is limited to an approved list, with no exclusions.
• Lookalike audiences are not available for housing ads.

Google's personalised advertising policy for housing, in the US and Canada, bars targeting by gender, age, parental status, marital status or ZIP code.

Pick the housing category for every ad about a listing, a rental or your services to buyers and sellers, even when the ad looks like brand awareness. Running it under another category to get the old targeting back is the kind of choice the regulation is about. The landing page behind the ad follows the wording rules too. Tracking which ads bring enquiries still works within these limits: see how to track leads from Meta ads.

What HUD has said about digital ads, and what changed

In April 2024 HUD published guidance on how the Act applies to advertising through digital platforms, covering ad targeting and the way platforms deliver ads. HUD withdrew it on 17 September 2025, along with seven other fair housing guidance documents, in a notice published in the Federal Register on 6 April 2026.

The notice says the withdrawn documents should not be relied on. It also says that actions that do not comply with the text of the Fair Housing Act remain subject to enforcement, and that people can still bring their own claims in court. The Act and HUD's regulations, including the advertising and steering rules above, did not change.

Older HUD memos on advertising wording are still widely quoted in training. Treat them as background, check HUD's site for what is current, and rely on the Act and the regulations themselves. State agencies and private fair housing groups enforce their own laws as well, and some test agencies with paired enquiries.

What a chatbot on your site may say

A chatbot on your website makes statements about homes on your behalf, so the advertising and steering rules apply to its answers as they do to an agent's. A chatbot that tells one visitor an area is "great for young families" has made the statement in writing, with a record.

The safe design follows from the rules:

• It answers from the listing data and notes you approve, and it says so when the answer is not there.
• It describes homes and amenities, never the people who live in an area.
• It asks every enquirer the same questions, and never asks about religion, nationality, health or family plans.
• Questions about safety, schools or the community get facts and the official sources, the same for everyone.
• A request for an adjustment at a viewing, such as step-free access, goes to the listing agent to arrange. What a chatbot should hand over has more examples of when a person takes over.

Before launch, run those five questions from the steering section through it, plus a few of your own, and read every answer as a fair housing trainer would. Then read real conversations every week. How the chatbot on an agency site handles listings and viewings is on our real estate page, and our AI chatbots page covers how we build and test one.

State and local laws add more

The federal list is the floor. Many states and cities protect more groups, and the same advertising logic applies to them. New York State, for example, also protects people from discrimination in housing because of their age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status and lawful source of income.

Source of income is where listings most often go wrong. In a state or city that protects it, a rental listing saying "no vouchers" or "no Section 8" is the kind of line those laws target. If you manage rentals, check the protected groups in each place you list homes, and keep the list next to the person who writes the ads. Rentals bring their own questions, covered on our property management page.

Agencies outside the US

Other countries have their own rules, written differently. In Great Britain, the Equality Act 2010 says a person with the right to sell or let premises must not discriminate in the terms they offer, by refusing to sell or let, or in how they treat people looking for a home. EU countries have equal treatment laws that cover access to housing, and each adds its own.

The practical rule carries over: describe the property, give everyone the same information and keep judgements about neighbours out of listings and chats. Ask your own adviser how the law in your country treats advertising.

A check before anything goes live

• Listing text: every sentence describes the home, the plot or the amenities, not the buyer or the neighbours.
• Photos: the people shown across the site reflect more than one kind of household.
• Area pages: facts and named sources, with no word such as safe, exclusive or family-friendly used as a judgement.
• Senior housing: a 55 and over claim only with the community's evidence that it qualifies.
• Rentals: no wording that breaks a state or local rule, such as source of income.
• Ads: the housing category chosen, no workaround audiences and a saved copy of the targeting.
• Chatbot: the steering test questions run, the answers read and the conversations reviewed weekly.
• Agents: one script for area questions and the same follow-up for every enquirer.
• Email alerts: sent only to people who asked for them, with matches chosen by price, size and location.

Keep records, and train the people who answer

Keep a copy of every ad with its targeting settings and dates, every version of a listing, and the chatbot's conversations for the period you agree. If a complaint arrives, those records show what was said and to whom.

Train everyone who answers enquiries with the same examples: the five questions above, a buyer who asks about the neighbours' religion, a tenant who mentions a disability. Write down the agency's answer to each, and review it when the law or the platforms change.

Name one person, usually the broker of record, who decides on wording questions and who an agent can ask before a listing goes out. An agent who is unsure should ask rather than guess.