Website builds for lenders, brokerages and property managers

Lending and real estate sites carry more regulated surface area than most business sites, and much of it hides in components rather than copy. A payment calculator, a rate banner, a listing template and a loan officer card are all design pieces, and each one can raise an advertising question.

This page covers fair housing and site imagery, Regulation Z on calculators and rate displays, NMLS identifiers, and how our build runs. Writing about programs and markets is covered on our real estate and lending content hub. Treat each point as an item for your compliance reviewer or counsel, not legal advice.

Fair housing reaches images and templates

HUD's regulation at 24 CFR 100.75 makes it unlawful to publish "any notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling" that indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination on a protected basis. Its examples go beyond wording: one is "Using words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols or forms which convey that dwellings are available" or unavailable to particular groups, and another is "Selecting media or locations for advertising" in ways that deny parts of the market information about housing. For a brokerage or property manager, that puts photography, listing templates and neighborhood pages inside the review. A neighborhood description is not a description of who should live there. Templates should describe the property and the place (housing types, commute routes, amenities the firm can verify), and the firm should approve every stock photo.

Calculators, rate displays and Regulation Z

Section 1026.24 of Regulation Z says an advertisement may state only terms that "actually are or will be arranged or offered by the creditor," requires a rate of finance charge to be stated as an "annual percentage rate," using that term, and lists terms that trigger further disclosure: the amount or percentage of any down payment, the number of payments or period of repayment, the amount of any payment, and the amount of any finance charge. Once a trigger term appears, the ad must also state the down payment, the terms of repayment and the annual percentage rate, and, if the rate may increase after consummation, that fact. For credit secured by a dwelling, the section also prohibits misleading use of the word "fixed."

A mortgage calculator that outputs a monthly payment displays the amount of a payment, one of those trigger terms, so ask compliance whether and how it should carry disclosures; the design should leave room for that text beside the number, not in a link below it. A homepage rate banner needs a named owner, a timestamp and the APR beside any rate. Ask your pricing lead, "When pricing changes at ten in the morning, who updates the rate on our homepage, and what does the page show if nobody does?" If nobody can answer, a rate-free design that invites a quote request may be the safer build.

NMLS identifiers and licensing details

The CFPB tells consumers that the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System & Registry (NMLS) maintains a free service, NMLS Consumer Access, for checking whether a company or professional is authorized to conduct business in their state. For originators at covered financial institutions under 12 CFR part 1007, section 1007.105 requires the institution to make originators' unique identifiers available to consumers and requires each originator to provide the identifier upon request, before acting as an originator, and "through the originator's initial written communication with a consumer, if any, whether on paper or electronically." State-licensed lenders and brokers should ask each state regulator where their NMLS ID must appear. One layout to bring to compliance: the company ID in every footer, each loan officer's ID on that person's page with a link to NMLS Consumer Access, and a licensing page listing every state the compliance team confirms.

How the build runs

The work moves through our four steps. Authority Asset collects licenses and NMLS IDs, the programs actually offered, approved disclosure language, photo and listing rules, and application links. Nobody building a calculator should have to guess which disclosures the lender's compliance team requires, so those come in writing before design starts. Hudson Twenty-One records how loan officers and agents explain things, Market Intelligence maps what borrowers and owners ask, and AEO Creation turns those inputs into answer-first pages. The build adds JSON-LD, an XML sitemap, redirects, mobile and automated accessibility checks, and a quality gate on copy. Applications should link to the firm's own systems: the FTC Safeguards Rule lists "mortgage lenders" and "mortgage brokers" among covered institutions, and a contact form that emails submissions is no place for a Social Security number. Netlify suits low upkeep with us making edits, WordPress suits posting market updates yourself, and Squarespace suits a simple editor you manage.