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.