Fair Housing regarding a private home in a College environment! Rules???

Here's my quandry! Does anyone have a difinitive answer?

My brother owns a home in Lubbock just off Texas Tech Campus. His "student son" resides there and they are seeking to rent the other rooms out.

1. In Lubbock...the landlord can not rent a room to more than 3 non-family members and at least one family member must reside there.
2. This is practically on a college campus...The Fair housing question is...

Can we specify who he wants to rent to, such as..."Student"..."Gender"..."Age"...etc. I see many ads on craig's list specifically advertising to for example "Female College Student". And I wonder if this is permissable and legal? As the owner of his home with a family member residing there, does the "7 protected classes rule" not apply?

I've called The City of Lubbock, and the Hud office there and no one wants to give me a difinitive answer, although, I got an "I'm pretty sure you can rent to whom ever you want to".

Having been in this industry going on 25 years...I'm a bit baffled on the whole Student / Subletting a room concept.

Does anyone know for sure, because I'm trying to advise my brother on his rights as a landlord.

Thanks,
:unsure:

I was sure hoping someone had an answer here. I even joined twitter to see if there were any responses there. NADA.

Anybody???

I would recommend trying a site like www.roommates.com which allows you to search for specifics such as age, gender, etc.

Legally you can advertise however you like, within reason. For example producing an add that details the home and then says "perfect for students!" or "close to (more gender oriented establishments)" would be a way to attract the type of renter you might be looking for. Most likely no one really wants to give a precise answer, because what you are asking kind of falls into a gray area. For a private residence you can pretty much advertise it however you see fit, but when it comes to the actual application process you should still follow Fair Housing guidelines. If you do get an applicant that doesn't fit your criteria, you don't necessarily have to select them, but you still can't deny them and base the reason on something that violates Fair Housing. It would just open the door to a headache you wouldn't want to deal with.

Have you considered just advertising it as someone looking for a roommate and not as someone looking to rent a vacancy? That might be a good way to go.

Here is my understanding: if you have a house and you want to rent out a room in it, you may advertise a preference as to male or female. Age is protected, I believe so you could say, "Looking to rent a bedroom in my cozy 2 bedroom house. Shared bath. Male only (or female if homeowner is female.)" I would suggest using roommate.com or roommate finder.com, as previously suggested. If you want a college student, take your flyers to the college campuses and where the students hangout or place an ad in the campus newspaper.