Bad Words Like "Bachelor" Banned By Real Estate Company

See anything wrong with the ad pictured here? Without those little circles the Post drew all over it, you might not know that it's filled with forbidden words. Laws like the Fair Housing Act explicitly prohibit the use of words like "exclusive," "private," or "family-friendly," in real estate ads, because they could be intended as discriminatory code to weed out buyers based on race, gender, occupation, religion, sexual orientation, marital status or disability. In response to a number of recent lawsuits, real estate company Corcoran has now officially banned more than 200 potentially "offensive" words and installed new software blocking brokers from typing them into their ads. Unsurprisingly, the new naughty word enforcement has exasperated some in the real estate industry. Corcoran VP Christine Toes says, "By saying 'walking distance,' I would be discriminating against those who are unable to walk. Hopefully, I can still use 'close proximity to public transportation.' " Nice—way to discriminate against cyclists!

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By John Del Signore in News on March 12, 2009 9:30 AM

Comments [rss]

Eriiique

I am just going to go ahead and say that this is ridiculous.

NannyState

Babs is still ok with her "Lipstick Building-close, Madoff-convenient" listing.

7train

#9 LOL

7train

#LOL!!!!

agree with you 100%

snickerdoodle

Congrats to the bleeding heart PC liberals, they're winning the war against freedom of speech and common sense.

floretbroccoli

Some time ago I was told that "quiet building" means no Jews.

Who knows what else these seemingly innocuous words hide.

Polite New Yorker

Sadly, this is the result of some of our civil rights laws. The government has a right to crack down on people who use false advertising or otherwise engage in fraudulent or deceptive business practices. But the government has no right to tell anyone how they can rent or sell their property. If you don't want white people or Octo-moms living in your building, that's your right because that's your building.

bucephalus

What's wrong with with "private" and "exclusive." Do those words discriminate against communalists?

nycviabos

This must be a gross misinterpretation of the Fair Housing Act (or perhaps this provision of the Fair Housing Act was just poorly thought out).

Politburo

I'm gonna go with gross misinterpretation. Note that this is a private company making the change with no prompting from government.

bittinho

According to the NYPost article, this is actually being done in response to a "slew of recent court cases and enforcement". I think its excessive but Corcoran isn't doing this in a vacuum. I wish someone would go after brokers for lying about square footage.