The Tennessee Fair Housing Council is always seeking objective, conscientious, discreet and detail-oriented adults of all races, ages and national origins to act as testers (sometimes known as “mystery shoppers”) in fair housing investigations. People with disabilities are also welcome.
Testers are individuals we train and assign to pose as shoppers for apartments, homes to purchase, mortgage loans and homeowners insurance. Testers are asked to write detailed reports and complete forms about their experiences. Those reports can help the Council to determine whether a provider of housing, loans or insurance might have a business practice of discriminating against some customers based on their race, national origin, disability or some other characteristic.
While testers are primarily volunteers, we pay a small stipend – $40 for rental, $50 for sales – for completed tests. We also have a phone testing program that you can do from home. We pay mileage. Most of our testing is in Davidson County, but we may also carry out tests in Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner and Wilson counties.
Please note: This is not part-time employment and is not steady work. Testers are assigned as needed and as available. Also, because of HUD rules, real estate agents and individuals engaged in the renting or selling of residential property are not eligible to be testers.
Interested?
If you think you might be interested in joining our testing team, please fill our our contact form, and our testing coordinator will get back to you to further discuss your interest, your qualifications and available training dates. (We are not able to train and use as testers anyone who has been convicted of a felony or any crime involving fraud or perjury.)