Marketing When You're An Agent In NJ
Hello all!
Went to talk with a broker today regarding hanging my license. My main concern with becoming an agent is the requirement to disclose that in advertising, as well as the requirement to plaster your broker's logo and name on top of your marketing.
My intention in hanging my license is to mostly get access to the MLS, and feed leads to agents for referral commissions, or maybe even list a house now and then. So therefore, I don't want my marketing messages to scream "I WANT TO LIST YOUR HOUSE" before the people even get to the real message, which is what I believe having a broker's name and logo on the top would accomplish.
My thought was that if I created a corporation, the corporation would be able to do marketing that does not include the broker's name or even any mention of a broker. I would simply be the president/ceo of the company and not the entity doing the marketing.
So the question is: Does this work? Also, would this only work for C Corps, or would it work for S Corps and LLCs as well?
Please note that I'm located in NJ, so people with experience with this in NJ would be helpful.
Thank you in advance!
All the best,
Raymond Merz
P.S. Feel free to private message me if you wish.
I think it'd be fair to say that for most of us who do have RE licenses, it's no biggy to say, in all ads, "Owner (or principal) is RE licensee".
Believe it or not, most motivated sellers & buyers don't give a hoot if, how, when, etc. you have any kind of a license.
All they care about is what THEY want, being human & normal.
And, yes, I do speak from experience here, having a number of different licenses in various jurisdictions, and having been engaged in buying, selling, leasing, flipping, etc. for a long time.
To my recollection nobody ever refused to take my money, or let me solve their problems because of any license I had.
As long as I had the solution for their problems, that seemed to be all that mattered.
your broker will certainly have a problem with you having a a separate company to market yourself as a home buyer because his errors and omission insurance may not renew him or deny a claim. most insurance companies will not insure a broker were if more than 10% of his business includes selling his own/agents homes even they are in a corporate name. put the property in your wifes name or the corporation where she has 100% controlling interest and go hang your license...[ Edited by lp1 on Date 07/14/2004 ]
Thanks for the replies,
John, its not so much that I'd have to say I'm an agent somewhere in the advertising. Its that the broker is telling me that the logo and broker name has to appear traditional style on top of everything I do. I feel that this would put people in the wrong mindset for my message (namely "I want to buy your house" not "I want to list your house.)
I would have no problem putting somewhere "Some Members of Generic LLC. licensed real estate agents" or some sort of disclosure in the copy or in the footer.
Another question: What type of attorney should one look for to answer a question like this?
Thanks once again,
Ray Merz
Here are some things I think I'd do:
1. Talk to some other brokers & see how they'd want you to handle this.
2. Talk to a couple of area title cos and find out what lawyers they use. Those lawyers are likely to know RE well enough.
3. Find your state's RE Licensing Regs, written by RE Commission, and read them. Usually these are simple enough to be understood, and will give you lots of info without having to guess about it.
You can probably do this online, but if that proves problematic, just wander over to your nearest, largest courthouse law library and chat with the law librarian there, and you can quickly be looking at your state RE Regs.
Good luck.
John Merchant