| Course | MT361 Foundations of Real Estate Practice |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Fair housing review |
| Length | About 870 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT361 Unit 7
House or Buyer: An MT361 Unit 7 Fair Housing Review of a Draft Ranch Listing, Phrase by Phrase
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT361: Foundations of Real Estate Practice
Unit 7 Fair Housing Review
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The listing, agent and the state of Calder are composite; the federal guidance and sources cited are real, and the state box is illustrative.
The Draft Listing
The draft, as written: "Charming 1962 brick ranch on an exclusive, safe street, perfect for a young couple starting out or empty nesters ready to downsize! Three bedrooms, including a master bedroom with half bath, original hardwoods under the carpet and a one-car garage. Quiet adult street with mature trees. Walk to St. Brigid's parish and school. Not suited to wheelchairs. Full unfinished basement ready for your ideas. Lovingly maintained by the original owners for forty years. Close to shopping and the highway. Priced to sell at $299,900, so call today before it's gone!"
The Seven Federal Classes
The Fair Housing Act of 1968, as amended, prohibits discrimination in housing, including in advertising, because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status, meaning the presence of children under eighteen. Federal rules make it unlawful to publish any advertisement that indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination based on those classes (Discriminatory advertisements, statements and notices, 2024). Every flag below cites one of the seven.
Rules Box: Calder, Composite
The composite state of Calder adds source of income, marital status and age to the federal list. Real states and cities vary, so an actual review would check the state and local law where the property sits.
The Test
One question runs through the review: does the phrase describe the property, its features and its location, or the sort of person it imagines living there? Property descriptions stay. Descriptions of buyers go, whatever the writer intended. HUD's 1995 guidance on advertising explains that the concern is the message a reader receives, so an agent's kind intent does not cure a phrase that tells some readers they are not wanted (Achtenberg, 1995).
Phrase by Phrase
Young couple starting out: describes a buyer, not the house. It signals a preference about household composition and age, which raises a familial status concern and, in Calder, an age and marital status concern. Rewrite.
Empty nesters ready to downsize: describes a buyer whose children have left, signaling that families with children are not the expected occupants. Familial status. Rewrite.
Quiet adult street: adult suggests the street is not for children. Familial status. Rewrite with a fact about the street.
Exclusive and safe: words describing a neighborhood's character rather than its features can steer buyers toward or away from an area, and HUD's guidance identifies such words as warning signs when they are used as code. Rewrite with facts. The facts are better selling copy anyway: a cul-de-sac location, a quarter-acre lot and a park two blocks away tell a buyer what the street is like without telling anyone who should live on it.
Not suited to wheelchairs: tells a buyer with a disability to look elsewhere. Disability. The facts behind it, steps to the entry and a basement reached by stairs, are useful to every buyer and should be stated as facts.
Walk to St. Brigid's parish and school: naming a house of worship as a selling point can signal a religious preference. Religion. Cut; the address already locates the house.
Master bedroom: kept. HUD's 1995 guidance treats it as a description of a room, not a person, and the review does not flag phrases merely because they sound cautious. Some brokerages prefer primary bedroom as a style choice, which is fine but not required.
A phrase that tells a reader who belongs in the home is rewritten even when the agent meant it kindly.
The Rewritten Listing
The rewrite keeps the same length and replaces each flagged phrase with a fact: "1962 brick ranch on a quiet cul-de-sac with mature trees, two blocks from Linwood Park. Three bedrooms, including a primary bedroom with half bath, original hardwood floors under the carpet and a one-car attached garage. Three steps to the front entry; full unfinished basement reached by stairs, ready to finish. Maintained by the original owners for forty years. Lot of 0.28 acre. Close to shopping and Route 9. Listed at $299,900. Call to schedule a showing."
Photographs and Ad Audiences
The review extends to the listing's images and its online advertising. The draft used two stock lifestyle photographs showing a single kind of household; they are replaced with photographs of the rooms without people. Digital ads for the listing will run without filters by age, sex, family status or ZIP code. Those targeting options drew federal enforcement against a major ad platform, which in 2022 agreed to change its housing ad delivery system to settle allegations of discriminatory advertising (U.S. Department of Justice, 2022).
Training Note
The agent who wrote the draft meant every phrase as a compliment. The review recommends that the brokerage give new licensees the house-or-person test as a single checklist question, since it catches every problem in this draft without requiring them to memorize a list of banned words.
References
Achtenberg, R. (1995, January 9). Guidance regarding advertisements under section 804(c) of the Fair Housing Act [Memorandum]. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Discriminatory advertisements, statements and notices, 24 C.F.R. ยง 100.75 (2024).
U.S. Department of Justice. (2022, June 21). Justice Department secures groundbreaking settlement agreement with Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, to resolve allegations of discriminatory advertising [Press release]. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-groundbreaking-settlement-agreement-meta-platforms-formerly-known
The Purdue Global MT361 Unit 7 instructions
Unit 7 asks students to review real estate advertising for fair housing compliance and to rewrite it. The review should list the federally protected classes once, then examine the listing phrase by phrase, naming the class each problem phrase touches. Instructors expect students to distinguish phrases that describe a property from phrases that describe a preferred buyer, and to avoid flagging words simply because they sound sensitive. State and local protections should be noted where the prompt sets a state. The rewritten listing should keep its selling power while replacing each flagged phrase with a fact. Many sections also ask students to consider photographs and online ad targeting, since the law covers every medium.
Inside the MT361 Unit 7 example
The sample reproduces the draft listing first, then lists the seven federal classes and cites the federal advertising rule. A composite state box follows. The single test is stated, with HUD's 1995 guidance on why intent does not cure a message. Each problem phrase is taken in turn with its class and a reason, and master bedroom is kept with an explanation, under a highlighted line about kind intent. The rewritten listing replaces each phrase with a fact of the same length, including the number of entry steps. Photographs and ad audiences are reviewed, citing the 2022 federal settlement. A training note proposes the one-question test for new licensees.
MT361 Unit 7 rubric: what earns full points
Fair housing reviews tend to be marked on accuracy about protected classes, precision in flagging, quality of the rewrite and attention to every medium. Naming the right class for each flagged phrase shows command of the law. Rubrics reward a review that explains why a phrase is a problem rather than listing banned words. Keeping a phrase that only sounds cautious, with a reason, shows judgment. The rewrite should be as appealing as the original and contain only facts about the property. Extending the review to photographs and ad targeting shows awareness of current enforcement. Federal guidance and rules cited in APA 7 support each conclusion, and state additions are clearly labeled.
MT361 Unit 7 help: mistakes that cost points
These reviews often flag every word on a published list without asking what each phrase does, which removes useful facts along with problems. Another weakness is missing the less obvious problems, such as a church named as a selling point or the word adult. Rewrites frequently become bland, dropping the details that sell the house. Some students state that intent matters, when the test is the message a reader receives. Photographs and ad targeting are often ignored entirely. Before you rewrite, sort every phrase into two columns, the house and the person. Keep everything in the first column, and turn everything in the second into a fact about the house.
Get an MT361 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Paste in the draft listing from the Unit 7 assignment, or a property description where original copy is required, plus the rubric and whichever state the case uses. A free first custom review comes back within 24-48h: every phrase tested, every flag tied to a protected class, and the rewrite kept useful. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT361 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
- MT361 Unit 1: Why Sellers Hire a Licensee Post
- MT361 Unit 2: Agency Relationship Brief
- MT361 Unit 3: Listing Agreement Clause Review
- MT361 Unit 4: Comparative Market Analysis
- MT361 Unit 5: Listing Presentation Slides
- MT361 Unit 6: Seller Disclosure Role-Play Reflection
- MT361 Unit 8: Purchase Offer Analysis
- MT361 Unit 9: Transaction Timeline
- MT361 Unit 10: Property Management Plan
- MT359 Unit 7: Sales Promotion Proposal
- MT358 Unit 7: Influencer and Disclosure Plan
- MT357 Unit 7: Paid Digital Media Plan
- MT355 Unit 7: Market Research Sampling Plan
MT361 Unit 7 questions, answered
What are the seven federally protected classes?
Under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 as amended: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status. Sex was added in 1974, and disability and familial status in 1988. Many states and cities protect additional classes, such as age, sexual orientation or source of income, so name the state rules you are applying or bracket them.
Is it a violation to mention a nearby church or school?
Mentioning a landmark to locate a property is generally treated differently from language suggesting who should live there, but caution is common practice. Naming a school or park as a distance reference is usually safe; presenting a place of worship as a reason a particular group would like the home is not. When a phrase adds little, many brokerages simply cut it.
Does fair housing apply to online ad targeting?
Yes. The Act covers advertising in any medium, and federal enforcement has addressed platforms that let housing advertisers include or exclude audiences by protected characteristics or close proxies for them. A course review can note which targeting options a listing's digital ads use and recommend running them without filters tied to age, family status or location proxies.
Where can I find a free MT361 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page has the full MT361 Unit 7 fair housing review, with a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a draft listing and a rewrite built on facts.
Why does the MT361 Unit 7 sample keep master bedroom?
HUD's 1995 advertising guidance treats it as a description of a room, not of a person, so it raises no fair housing concern, though some brokerages prefer primary bedroom.