Fair Housing Flashcards: Steering, Blockbusting, Redlining, and Disability Rights (2026)
Federal fair-housing language tested on salesperson exams: protected classes, steering, blockbusting, redlining, familial status, and the difference between an accommodation and a modification.
License law is state-specific and manuals are revised. Confirm every item against the candidate handbook for the state where you will test.
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Fair Housing Act
The federal law that prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status, with limited exemptions.
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Full glossary
Every term, pronunciation, definition, memory hook, and exam trap is written out here so you can review the whole set or print it.
Fair Housing Act
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The federal law that prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status, with limited exemptions.
Mnemonic. Seven federal doors that may not be closed: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, familial status.
Exam trap. State exams add state classes, but they do not subtract the federal ones. Sexual orientation and source of income are frequent state additions. Check the state handbook.
Guiding buyers or renters toward or away from neighborhoods because of a protected class, including answering where people like you live with a list of selected areas.
Mnemonic. Steering is the agent choosing the neighborhood for the customer.
Exam trap. The trap is a well-meant warning about a neighborhood. Directing based on a protected class is steering even when the agent believes it is helpful. Ask the customer to set the search.
Inducing owners to sell by suggesting that people of a particular protected class are moving in and that values will fall. It is also called panic selling.
Mnemonic. Blockbusting frightens owners into listing.
Exam trap. A truthful answer to an owner's unsolicited question is not an invitation to predict falling values because of who the neighbors are. The panic prediction is the violation.
Refusing a loan, insurance, or other housing service in a geographic area because of the protected-class composition of the area rather than the credit risk of the applicant.
Mnemonic. Redlining is a line around a neighborhood, not a credit decision about one borrower.
Exam trap. A denial based on documented income and credit, applied the same way everywhere, is not redlining. The exam stem that mentions the area and not the file is the clue.
The protected class that covers households with a child under 18, a person who is pregnant, or a person securing custody of a child.
Mnemonic. Familial status protects the family that has, or is about to have, a child.
Exam trap. No children is a classic illegal ad line. Housing for older persons can be a narrow exemption when the community actually qualifies. The exemption is not a slogan.
A change in rules, policies, or services so a person with a disability has an equal opportunity to use the housing, such as an assistance-animal exception to a no-pets rule.
Mnemonic. An accommodation changes a rule. A modification changes the building.
Exam trap. Charging a pet deposit for an assistance animal is the usual trap. The animal is not a pet under this rule, and the accommodation is not a license to skip the rest of the lease.
A physical change to the premises, such as a grab bar or a ramp, that a person with a disability needs in order to use the housing.
Mnemonic. Modification is a change you can touch: a bar, a ramp, a doorway.
Exam trap. In many rental situations the tenant pays for the modification and may have to restore the interior where that is reasonable. Do not answer that every landlord must fund every alteration.
A category of people the fair-housing law specifically forbids a housing provider or licensee to use as a basis for different treatment.
Mnemonic. If the law names the class, different treatment because of that class is the violation.
Exam trap. A seller's instruction to discriminate does not transfer the liability away from the licensee. The lawful response is to refuse the instruction and, if needed, to refuse the listing.