The enforcement landscape
Line-by-line
Annual complaints (2007-2024)
| Year | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 27,000 |
| 2008 | 28,000 |
| 2009 | 30,000 |
| 2010 | 31,000 |
| 2011 | 32,000 |
| 2012 | 32,000 |
| 2013 | 30,000 |
| 2014 | 29,000 |
| 2015 | 28,000 |
| 2016 | 31,000 |
| 2017 | 34,000 |
| 2018 | 32,000 |
| 2019 | 31,000 |
| 2020 | 29,000 |
| 2021 | 31,000 |
| 2022 | 33,000 |
| 2023 | 34,000 |
| 2024 | 32,321 |
2024 complaints by type (%)
| Transaction type | Share |
|---|---|
| Rental Market Transactions | 83.5% |
| Other Housing-Related | 10.1% |
| Harassment | 2.5% |
| Real Estate Sales | 2.0% |
| Mortgage Lending | 0.7% |
| HOA / Condo | 0.6% |
| Advertising | 0.3% |
| Appraisal | 0.1% |
| Homeowner Insurance | 0.1% |
2024 complaints by basis (%)
| Protected basis | Share |
|---|---|
| Disability | 54.6% |
| Race | 15.6% |
| Sex | 7.1% |
| National Origin | 5.7% |
Where the enforcement actually is
Disability > race + sex + national origin combined
Where the enforcement is. 54.6% beats 15.6 + 7.1 + 5.7 (28.4%) by nearly 2:1. If you want to know where CRD/HUD are actually filing cases, it's disability.
83.5% are rental, only 2% real-estate sales
The pointy end of enforcement is landlords. Sales agents are a tiny sliver of the complaint funnel — but they also read the NAR-published disparate-impact statistics as if they were the main target. They are not.
Fewer complaints ≠ improvement
Could mean underreporting with changed federal enforcement. A drop from 34,000 (2023) to 32,321 (2024) is within the noise band — and may reflect reduced trust in federal complaint channels, not better outcomes.
Oscar's last slide — closes the argument
DEI attention has been on race + sales; enforcement is on disability + rentals. The industry's attention and the regulator's attention are pointed at different places.
54.6% of all 2024 complaints were disability-based. That's larger than race, sex, and national origin combined. The industry's DEI attention has been pointed at the wrong place.
Source: National Fair Housing Alliance — 2025 Fair Housing Trends Report.