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Putting a Face on Real Estate since 1995™
• HBA 2018 Parade of Homes Builder Reveal • Avalar Austin Awards Banquet • Keller Williams Round Rock Awards Event • & Much, Much More!
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APRIL 2018 • VOLUME 22 • ISSUE 12
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REALTORS could find themselves in hot water with TREC; find out how to protect yourself By Riki Markowitz
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n November 2017, new advertising and business name regulations for real estate license holders were adopted during the 85th legislative session. Advertising, which includes marketing and publicizing your real estate services, is something that most license holders deal with on a daily basis, but surprisingly, some REALTORS have managed to miss the news. The new rules, which are upheld and ex-
plained by the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC), may require you to order new business cards, update your website or even change your print ads. One of the statutes requires license holders to register a new business name with TREC. There’s less than a month to go before the deadline.
Here’s what you need to know: Senate Bill 2212 has been in development for two years. It details new rules regarding business name registration and advertising guidelines for brokers and real estate agents. Justin Landon, vice president of government affairs at San Antonio Board of REALTORS (SABoR), says “It’s like a [TREC] housekeeping bill that addresses a lot of little issues that people are facing.” The first part of the rule, regarding your business name and registration, includes these provisions: • Alternate names, associated broker, DBAs, and team names must be defined in ads • Business name must be registered with TREC before it can be used in advertising • DBAs and team names are registered by the broker; alternate names are registered by individual license holders • Team name can not be a broker’s DBA; and it must end with “group” or “team”
Featured Event April 24th, 6 p.m. (details on page 33) ABoR: TREPAC "Come & Taste It"
Here are the rules regarding advertising: • Name of the license holder or team name must be easily noticeable in all ads • The broker’s name must be in all ads and must appear no less than half the font size of the largest contact information for the agent, team name or associate broker. (There is leeway regarding social media advertising.) For social media ads, text messages, emails
and other online marketing outreach, the required information can be located on a separate page. The only condition is that the public must be able to easily access the name of the broker or brokerage on another page (via hotlink or URL). To comply with the new rules, Shawn Rooker, an agent with Realty Austin, added this information on all of his electronic correspondence and social media advertising: “Texas law requires all license holders to provide the Information About Brokerage Services form to prospective clients.”
He includes a hotlink that takes consumers to a TREC-approved document with the name, license number and contact information for the brokerage, designated broker, licensed agent supervisor and the agent’s name. By passing new naming rules and advertising guidelines, as well as amending some older rules, TREC is aiming to prevent the public from being “misled or deceived,” according to
Front Page: Continued on page 28
Features of the Month Column: ABoR—Stay Connected and Informed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 3 Column: Be a Professional!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .pg. 7 Column: HBA—2018 Parade of Homes, Facebook Marketing & Crawfish Boil . . . . . . . pg. 15 Column: RRC—New Advertising No Nos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 18 Column: Women's Council—What? Advertising Rules Change Again?. . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 20 Expert Commentary: There are Many Ways to Help a Family Member Buy a Home. . . . pg. 22 Associates in Progress: Supreme Lending. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 25 Associates in Progress: Chicago Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 26 Upcoming Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg. 33