Fair Housing Commitment
How NeighborhoodSense keeps neighborhood data factual, uniform, and Fair Housing-conscious.
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, and national origin. Real estate professionals navigate this every day — most visibly when a client asks a question the agent cannot safely answer, like "is this a good neighborhood?" or "is this area safe?"
NeighborhoodSense exists to give buyers, renters, and agents a better option: a neutral, factual report drawn from public government data, presented identically for every address in the country. This page explains the design decisions behind that.
1) No Demographic Data — By Design
NeighborhoodSense reports contain no data on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, familial status, or any other characteristic protected under the Fair Housing Act. This is not an oversight; it is the product's central design constraint. Our data pipelines are built to exclude demographic fields at the point of import — the information never enters our database.
Reports describe places and public records — reported incidents, school program offerings, air quality readings, hospital patient-experience survey results — never the people who live somewhere.
2) Facts, Not Judgments
We show actual reported figures — counts, rates, measurements, and program availability — rather than opinions about whether an area is "good," "desirable," or "safe." Where we present a score, it is a mathematical comparison of public data points, with the methodology and underlying numbers shown alongside it.
We label data at the level it is collected. City-level statistics are identified as city-level, not presented as address-specific. Reported incidents are labeled as reported. School information reflects what schools file with the federal government, including which schools are not graded and why.
3) The Same Report for Every Address
Every NeighborhoodSense report uses the same data categories, the same sources, and the same methodology, for every address, every time. No area is treated differently, highlighted, or excluded. What varies between two reports is only what the public record says.
4) How Agents Use NeighborhoodSense
When a client asks a question an agent cannot answer without risk, the agent can share a NeighborhoodSense report and let the client review the public data and reach their own conclusions. The agent provides access to information rather than an opinion — which is both better service and sound Fair Housing practice.
Reports shared through the platform carry the same neutral content whether they are viewed by the agent, the client, or anyone else with the link.
5) Our Data Sources
All report data comes from public government sources, including:
- U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection (school incident reports and academic program offerings)
- FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (reported crime, presented at the level it is collected)
- EPA air quality monitoring and Toxics Release Inventory
- CMS HCAHPS hospital patient-experience surveys
- Bureau of Labor Statistics employment and wage data
- State and local public safety records
Every report identifies its sources, and data limitations are disclosed where they exist.
6) What NeighborhoodSense Is Not
- We do not recommend, rank, or steer anyone toward or away from any neighborhood.
- We do not provide legal advice. Agents and brokerages should consult their own counsel and their association's Fair Housing training for guidance on their obligations.
- We do not guarantee outcomes. Public data has limitations, and reports are one input among many in a housing decision.
7) Questions
NeighborhoodSense
Email: [email protected]