A fair housing organization in Pennsylvania sued a realty company for using the term "rare find" for a house it offered. The house was in a black neighborhood, and the fair housing activists claimed that "rare find" was a racially discriminatory phrase indicating that it was rare to find nice homes in black areas.

Long Island Housing Services sued a newspaper for permitting the use of the term "professional" in classified ads. A spokesman for the group claimed that the word "professional" was a racist code word.

The Chicago Tribune reported that realty professionals in various parts of the country had been told the term 'walk-in closet' is unacceptable because it discriminates against wheelchair-bound persons, and that 'master bedroom' likewise suggests slavery.

The New York Times noted in November 1993: "Anyone shopping for a house these days is likely to find brokers reluctant to answer the question of which community has the best schools, particularly in metropolitan suburbs. While this is a major concern of the buyer, brokers know that an inappropriate answer could be considered a violation of the Fair Housing Law." The Westchester County, New York, Board of Realtors discourages its members from giving out average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of local schools even though the figures are published in the newspaper. Board attorney Edward Sumber observed, "There is some feeling that high SAT levels imply a non-racially mixed area."

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