Two things stated in one place
This page does two jobs. It sets out the Fair Housing commitments that govern everything we publish and every list we send, and it explains exactly how a service that is free to renters gets paid. Both usually sit buried in body copy somewhere. They belong on a page you can check.
The same commitments shape how we write about criminal records, which is covered in more depth on background issues.
What we will not do
We do not characterize neighborhood safety. No “safest areas”, no crime commentary, no “good part of town”. Safety framing correlates strongly with racial composition and is the clearest steering exposure a locator has. If you want that data, public agencies publish it and you should read it directly rather than take a leasing professional’s summary of it.
We do not steer. Not on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or disability, and not through proxy language. You will not find “great for young professionals” or “perfect for families” anywhere on this site. Those phrases sort people, and sorting people is what the Fair Housing Act exists to prevent.
We do not characterize a criminal record. On background pages we state a property’s policy as the property states it, with a date. We never tell a renter their record automatically disqualifies them, and we never tell them it will be fine. HUD’s 2016 guidance made blanket criminal-record exclusions a disparate-impact exposure, which is part of why individualized assessment now appears in screening criteria far more often than it used to.
We do not reference a renter’s disability. Where an accommodation question arises we describe the process, not the person, and point you to the right party to ask.
We do not promise approval, and we do not publish an undated statistic.
What we compare instead
Three things, on every submarket page: rent by unit type, off-peak commute times to the employment centers that submarket actually serves, and inventory age and class mix. All three are verifiable, all three are useful, and none of them sort people.
Inventory age in particular does real work in this market. Roughly 18% of San Antonio’s rental stock, about 47,352 units, was built between 1980 and 1989, and that older Class B and C product is where an on-site manager still reviews a complicated file by hand. That is a screening fact about buildings, not a claim about the people who live in them, and it is the single most useful thing we can tell a renter with a complication.
How we get paid
When a renter we introduce signs a lease, the community pays us a referral fee. It comes from the community’s marketing budget. The same money it would otherwise spend on listing-platform advertising. That is the whole model.
You are never invoiced. No placement fee, no consultation fee, no charge if you look and do not lease, and no charge if we cannot place you at all.
On rebates
Several locators in this market lead with a cash-back rebate at move-in. We do not offer one, and we would rather say why than let it look like an omission. Rebates are funded from the same referral fee. The bigger the advertised rebate, the stronger the incentive to route renters toward whichever community pays most rather than the one most likely to approve them.
Licensing and required notices
San Antonio Apartment Locators Group is brokered by Spirit Real Estate Group, LLC, TREC #9003398, with Tom Birdwell as designated broker. We are members of the National Association of Apartment Locators.
Texas requires two consumer notices to be available from every page:
Both are linked in the footer of every page on this site.
On what we publish about ourselves
Only what we can produce records for: the brokerage and licence, that our agents are licensed in Texas, NAAL membership, the free-to-renter structure, posted hours and the physical office.
Client counts, leases placed, review totals and star ratings are past-performance claims. A number that cannot be produced on request is misrepresentation under TREC advertising rules and actionable under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and FTC endorsement guidelines. They go up when they are earned and documented. The testimonials currently on this site are labelled as illustrative examples for exactly that reason.
Equal Housing Opportunity
We support the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. If you believe you have experienced housing discrimination, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accepts complaints directly, and the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division handles state-level fair housing complaints.
Now that you know how it works, the pre-qualification itself is free and carries no obligation, start for free.
