The words on a listing page are governed

Two sets of rules at once

Your state real estate commission governs licensing, naming and ad conduct, and the detail differs by state.

Separately, federal fair housing law governs what may be said about housing, and it reaches normal descriptive writing.

Both apply to a website. The second is the one that catches people out, because the wording usually feels innocent.

The fair housing layer is the one that catches people, because the wording usually feels harmless to whoever wrote it.

The fair housing layer applies to the words regardless of intent, which is what makes it the harder of the two. Nobody writes a listing meaning to exclude anybody.

Words that express a preference

Fair housing law prohibits ads that indicates a preference based on protected traits.

In practice that reaches phrases describing who a property would suit rather than what it is. Perfect for a young family. Ideal for a single professional. Walking distance to a certain place of worship.

Describe the property, never the buyer. Three bedrooms and a level garden says the same thing without implying who belongs there.

• Perfect for a young family
• Ideal for a single professional
• Walking distance to a named place of worship
• Great for empty nesters
• Suits a quiet professional couple
• Any sentence describing who should live there rather than what is there

Accessibility descriptions

Describing accessible features factually is helpful and expected. Step free entrance, ground floor bathroom, wide doorways.

What to avoid is framing those features as being for one kind of buyer. That turns a description into a statement about who should live there.

The same care applies to describing a neighborhood, where subjective wording can carry meaning the writer did not intend.

Read a listing back asking one question: does any sentence describe a person rather than a property. That single pass catches most of it.

Describe the feature, not the buyer. Step free entrance and ground floor bathroom are facts; framing them as being for somebody turns a description into a statement.

Brokerage naming

Most states require advertising to identify the brokerage, and many specify prominence relative to an agent's own name.

Team names and personal branding are where this goes wrong. The agent's name is large, and the brokerage appears once in a footer.

Check the rule for every state you operate in, and apply it on every page rather than only the homepage.

Apply it site wide rather than deciding page by page. A rule applied to the homepage and forgotten on two hundred listing pages is the version that gets noticed.

Listing accuracy and data rules

Square footage, lot size, school zones, tax figures and status all change. An old figure sitting on a page is a claim.

Where listing data comes from a multiple listing service, its own display rules usually apply. Those cover credit and how fast changes must show.

Say where data came from and when it was accurate. That single line prevents most disputes.

Say where data came from and when it was accurate. That single line prevents most disputes, and it is the same discipline as content freshness.

Photographs

Images must show the property as it is. Virtual staging is common and usually needs labelling so a viewer is not misled.

Removing something from a photograph that is present in the house is the version that causes real trouble.

Keep permission records for photographs of occupied homes, and for any recognisable person in them.

Virtual staging is common and generally needs labelling, because an unlabelled staged photograph shows a room that does not exist as pictured.

What the builder handles

Pages here are written from a talk about your business, and the builder refuses outcome promises about sale prices or timelines.

Every page passes a check that runs before anything publishes, validated against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards.

It does not know your state's rules on naming the brokerage and it does not screen for fair housing wording. Nothing here is legal advice, and this is an area where a knowledgeable read of your own copy is worth the hour.

Nothing here is legal advice, and a knowledgeable read of your own listing copy is worth an hour before launch — this is the one area where the wording itself is the exposure.