Somewhere in your leasing team's shared drive there is a document. Two columns, green and red. Words you can use, words you cannot.

Somebody printed it years ago. Nobody knows where it came from. It gets consulted when a new listing goes up, mostly by whoever is least confident about the rules, and it has quietly become the closest thing your organisation has to an advertising compliance policy.

That document is worth understanding properly, because its legal status is not what most people assume, and the gap between what it is and what people think it is creates risk in both directions.

This article is operational guidance, not legal advice. Fair housing obligations vary by state, county and city. Anything affecting your advertising policy should be reviewed by qualified counsel.

Where the list came from

Many of the word lists still circulating in the industry resemble language that appeared in two older HUD sources: the Fair Housing Advertising regulations at 24 CFR Part 109, and a January 9, 1995 HUD memorandum titled Guidance Regarding Advertisements Under §804(c) of the Fair Housing Act.

Part 109 was removed from the Code of Federal Regulations in 1996, and federal records from the period describe it as relegated to non-codified guidance rather than replaced.

The 1995 memorandum was written to guide HUD staff on accepting and investigating advertising complaints. It was not a rulebook for housing providers, and it stated that it did not address advertisements containing human models.

So the document in your shared drive resembles a regulation removed thirty years ago and an internal staff procedure from 1995. It has been photocopied, retyped and republished ever since.

And more guidance was withdrawn in 2025

This is the part almost nobody in property management has registered.

A Federal Register notice, Docket No. FR-6571-N-01, records that HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity withdrew a set of guidance documents effective September 17, 2025. HUD's stated reasoning was that some guidance had adopted interpretations inconsistent with statutory text, or imposed compliance burdens outside notice-and-comment rulemaking.

The important distinction is that withdrawing guidance did not amend Section 3604(c) of the Fair Housing Act. The statute remains in force. It makes it unlawful to make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination based on a protected class.

Housing providers should not treat the withdrawal of guidance as a repeal or relaxation of the statutory prohibition on discriminatory advertising.

What a fixed list gets wrong in both directions

Working from a word list produces two failures, and many operators have both running at once.

• Over-correction on language that was probably fine. Teams rewrite "master bedroom" and "walk-in closet" because the words appear on somebody's red list. Fair housing training organisations have long pointed out that phrases describing the property, including "great view," "walk-in closets" and "walk to bus stop," are generally acceptable. Time spent sanitising these is time not spent on anything that matters.

• Blind spots on language the list never anticipated. A document from the 1990s cannot cover how listings are written now. "Perfect for young professionals" signals a preference related to age and familial status. "Ideal for a quiet couple" does the same. None of that requires an obscure vocabulary. It requires describing a resident instead of a residence.

The list also cannot cover the channels. A social post promoting a vacancy is an advertisement. So is a targeted ad campaign. So is an image.

The principle that replaces the list

One sentence, and it does more work than any two-column document:

Describe the property, not the person you imagine living in it.

A listing that says the unit has two bedrooms, 940 square feet, in-unit laundry, a south-facing living room and assigned parking is describing a property. A listing that says it is perfect for a young couple starting out is describing a person.

Everything else follows from that. You do not need to memorise a vocabulary. You need to notice when a sentence has drifted from the unit to the resident.

Three things worth holding alongside it.

Intent alone does not resolve the issue. The Fair Housing Act addresses advertisements that indicate a prohibited preference, limitation or discrimination. Saying a team did not mean anything by it does not by itself establish that the advertisement complies.

Images are part of the advertisement. HUD's regulations at 24 CFR §100.75 expressly address words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols and forms that convey discriminatory availability, and HUD guidance has warned that human models may not be used to indicate exclusiveness on the basis of protected characteristics. Photo selection and virtual staging sit inside the same consideration as the copy.

Federal protections are the baseline, not necessarily the whole picture. The Fair Housing Act's statutory protected categories are race, colour, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. State and local laws may add protections such as source of income, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or veteran status, depending on the jurisdiction. Check the law applicable to each property rather than relying on a single national checklist.

AI-drafted copy still needs a policy

If your leasing team uses AI tools to draft or revise listing copy, that output should go through the same review as copy written by a person.

The question is not how the sentence was produced. It is what the published advertisement communicates.

A useful internal rule is straightforward: AI can assist with drafting, but it does not replace the reviewer's responsibility to check the final listing against your organisation's fair housing policy and the laws applicable to the property. The same principle applies whether the first draft came from an AI tool, a template or a leasing employee.

What does change with generated copy is scale. One agent writing carelessly produces one listing. A generation process applied across a portfolio produces many listings in the same voice, which is a reason to review the standard rather than only the individual output.

A property-focused description structure

Here is what to write, which is more useful than a list of what to avoid. A property-focused structure can look like this.

A example:

Two-bedroom, one-bath apartment, 940 sq ft, second floor, south-facing living room. In-unit washer and dryer, dishwasher, central air, walk-in closet in the primary bedroom. Luxury vinyl plank flooring throughout. One assigned parking space, secure entry, lift access to all floors. $1,650 per month plus $45 monthly utility administration fee and a $500 deposit. Water and refuse included. Available 1 August. Self-guided and agent-led tours available seven days a week.

Every sentence describes the unit. Nothing describes who should live there. The result is also more informative, because the copy focuses on facts a prospective renter can actually evaluate. Our article on why the same unit looks different on five sites covers what renters say they want to see in a listing.

Making this hold across a portfolio

A principle is only useful if it survives forty properties and staff turnover.

Write the standard down, and date it. Not a word list. A one-page policy stating the principle, the protected classes applicable in your jurisdictions, and what a property-focused description contains.

Review before publishing, not after a complaint. Whoever creates a listing should not be the only person who reads it.

Cover every channel. Portal listings, your website, social posts, paid campaigns, printed material.

Review the images on the same basis as the copy. Including virtual staging and any stock photography featuring people.

Include AI-drafted copy in the review.

Keep a record of what was published and when. If a listing is ever questioned, being able to show a documented review process and a prompt correction is worth having.

The reason this so often fails is not that anyone disagrees with it. It is that listings are created property by property, by different people, in different tools, and nobody can see them side by side to check.

Common mistakes

• Treating the word list as current law. It resembles a regulation removed in 1996 and a 1995 internal staff memorandum.

• Reading the 2025 withdrawals as relaxation. Section 3604(c) is unchanged.

• Policing vocabulary instead of subject matter. The question is whether a sentence describes the property or the person.

• Forgetting images and social posts. Both are advertising.

• Relying on federal protected classes alone. State and local law frequently adds more, and source of income is among the most commonly missed.

That document in the shared drive is not worthless. As a prompt to think before publishing, it has probably prevented real problems over the years.

It just is not what people think it is. It resembles a regulation removed thirty years ago, being used as a compliance policy by an organisation that has never written one.

The replacement is simpler and harder at the same time. One principle, applied to every listing, on every channel, including the images, including whatever the AI drafted. Simpler because there is nothing to memorise. Harder because it requires somebody to actually look, at every property, every time.

That last part is where the operational side becomes relevant. Listings are created property by property, by different people, and the practical obstacle to a portfolio-wide standard is usually that nobody can see them together to check whether it held.

RIOO's leasing capabilities organise property and unit information, pricing and listing marketing within the property management environment, and it also supports storing photos and videos by property and unit. That gives a portfolio-wide standard something to be checked against.

Pull ten listings from five different properties and read them for one thing only: does any sentence describe a person rather than the unit? That takes fifteen minutes and tells you whether you have a policy or a photocopy.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. Is there an official HUD list of banned words for rental listings?
HUD's Fair Housing Advertising regulations at 24 CFR Part 109 were removed from the CFR in 1996, and the widely circulated lists resemble those regulations and a January 1995 HUD memorandum written to guide staff handling complaints. The binding standard is the statute itself.

Q2. Did HUD withdraw fair housing guidance recently?
A Federal Register notice records that HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity withdrew a set of guidance documents effective September 17, 2025. That withdrawal concerned guidance documents, not the Fair Housing Act.

Q3. Does removing guidance mean advertising rules are more relaxed?
No. The prohibition sits in statute at Section 3604(c) and remains in force. Withdrawal of guidance should not be treated as a repeal or relaxation of that prohibition.

Q4. Can I say "master bedroom" or "walk-in closet"?
Fair housing training organisations have long treated phrases describing the property, including these, as generally acceptable. The greater risk is language describing a preferred type of resident.

Q5. Do listing photos fall under fair housing advertising rules?
HUD's regulations address photographs, illustrations and symbols alongside words and phrases, and HUD guidance has warned against using human models to indicate exclusiveness. Treat imagery, including virtual staging, with the same care as the written copy.

Q6. What should a listing description contain?
Unit type and size, layout, features and finishes, accessibility features stated factually, building amenities, rent with required fees, availability date and how to tour. Describe the property throughout.