Why “foreigners” gets a Fair Housing caution in listings

Why

It describes people by national origin instead of describing the property. Leave it out of the listing.

Safer wording

There's no one-click rewrite for this one. Describe the property, not the people, and rewrite this part by hand.

What the tag means

Caution means the phrase is on the caution side of the cited lists, or describes people in a way that usually reads as a preference. Many agents still use some of these, but describing the property instead is the safer move.

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1 phrase to look at

• Caution “foreigners”

  It describes people by national origin instead of describing the property. Leave it out of the listing.

A word check, not a legal review. Open the full checker for fixes, the fact lock and the MLS character count.

What the law covers here

National origin is a protected class under the federal Fair Housing Act. The lists flag words that describe the people who live somewhere by ancestry, birthplace or language. A building's architectural style, or a restaurant's cuisine, is a different thing, and the rules here treat those separately.

• Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c)

Sources

• HUD "Achtenberg memo": Guidance Regarding Advertisements Under §804(c), Jan. 9, 1995
• Long Island Board of REALTORS®: Fair Housing Advertising Word and Phrase Guidelines (Mar. 2025)

About the 1995 HUD memo

HUD no longer posts the 1995 memo on its website. Oregon REALTORS reported in April 2026 that HUD removed it without notice, and HUD withdrew its April 2024 digital-advertising guidance in September 2025. The Fair Housing Act and HUD's advertising regulation (24 CFR § 100.75) didn't change. Boards and MLS word lists still lean on the memo, which is why it's still cited here, as history and as the clearest explanation of how ads are read.

• Oregon REALTORS: Fair housing compliance after the guidance reset (Apr. 17, 2026)
• LeadingAge: HUD withdraws fair housing guidance documents (Sept. 17, 2025 memo)

Related phrases

• asian neighborhoods Avoid
• latinos Caution
• oriental design Caution
• english only Avoid
• citizens only Avoid
• spanish style OK
• chinatown OK
• all-american neighborhood Caution

All national origin phrases on one page · The 12-check listing checklist

Not legal advice. Word lists can't judge context, and laws differ by state and city, with some protecting more classes than federal law does. If you're unsure about a listing, ask your broker or a fair housing attorney. Rule nat-foreigners, ListingLint rules v2026.10.2.