As one who always looks to do my best and play by the rules, few things in life irritate me more than when others choose not to play by the rules. One of the more blatant and egregious violations I stumble across nearly every single day deals with advertising. Whether they aren't exactly sure of the rules...or they know them and elect not to follow them makes no difference: we're all supposed to follow the rules. So what do you do when you discover someone isn't doing so? Let it go? Report them to their broker or your real estate commission? How seriously do you take it when others do the wrong thing?
The Internet is a great tool- and one that has surely revolutionized our business and many others. It's hard to imagine not having the Internet now, as we go about our daily business and bounce from email to email and website to website in both prospecting and advertising to promote ourselves and our listings. And in today's tough economy, it's almost as hard to imagine not having craigslist for advertising purposes- as I heard someone say yesterday, "You can't beat free".
But is it too easy to advertise on craigslist? Perhaps. I can only speak for the 2 states where I hold licenses- Florida and Alabama, but it seems that many have chosen to enjoy craigslist's convenience while eschewing their responsibilities to the public under our license laws.
"Florida Administrative Rules 61J2-10.025 Advertising
(1) All advertising must be in a manner in which reasonable persons would know they are dealing with a real estate licensee. All advertising must include the name of the brokerage firm.
further...(3) When advertising on a site on the Internet, the brokerage firm name required in subsection (1) above shall be placed adjacent to or immediately above or below the point of contact information...."
I'm no linguistic scholar- but this looks like plain English to me. In layman's terms, folks looking at your ads should be able to distinguish your's from the Nigerians'. An ad that includes "...call me at 407-948-0335." as it's only contact information is not in compliance with the law- period.
Ads like these are bad for two reasons:
1. This ad could be a fake one- who knows who this number belongs to? and
2. Folks may respond to this ad and learn that it is an actual Realtor (Lorenzo A.)- making them believe scam ads they run across in the future are also legitimate- and that could be costly.
Old sayings still hold true in that there's no way to "dummy-proof" the world. No matter how hard one tries, there will always be folks that don't understand what's going on. We must still do our part, though, in following the laws and rules we've agreed to follow in this profession.
Our first and foremost job is to protect the public- so what do you do when you see others committing violations such as this?
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