Homebuying and Accessibility

My agency occasionally will be contacted by landlords or Realtors who want to advertise the fact that they have an accessible unit.  While we're more than happy to share the information, the reality is that we don't always know everyone that happens to be, at that moment, looking for a unit just like that.

I've made it a hobby of mine to contact website administrators to encourage them to include accessibility options in their search features.  Some websites do include that option. For instance, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) used by Realtors recently started offering that option.

Home buyers can go to Realtor.com, click on "Advanced Search" and end up with a list of options that a property can have.  Clicking on "Property Features" and scrolling down, the home buyer will see the option for "Disability Features" in the "Other Features" section.

Of course, you've got the other side of that equation.  A search for Waukesha homes or condos/town homes under $500,00 with disability features returned zero results for homes currently on the market.  It could mean that in all of Waukesha, there was not a single-family housing with accessibility features available on the market (although two were off-market for whatever reason).  Waukesha is hardly alone-the City of Milwaukee under $250,000 returned zero results (actually, 30 homes off-market).  That is quite implausible, so it could simply mean that most Realtors are not aware of that option when listing the property.

I am hopeful that with greater awareness, more and more people will be noting accessibility features when putting their unit on the market, whether it be a rental or a home for sale.  A significant barrier people with disabilities face today in their housing search is connecting with the units that match their needs.