The federal-association baseline is one rule. The state commission rule is the one that lands on the page.
- ✓TREC, DRE, FREC, DOS diverge on team-vs-broker font hierarchy, license-number visibility, and broker-affiliation prominence.
- ✓NAR SOP 12-9 sets the federal-association baseline. State rules layer and the more-restrictive rule controls.
- ✓Multi-state brokerages handle the variation at the page-template layer, not at the per-page editorial layer.
The four state-commission surfaces that diverge most and how the variation lands on a real estate website when the brokerage operates in more than one jurisdiction.
The Texas Real Estate Commission, the California Department of Real Estate, the Florida Real Estate Commission, and the New York Department of State each publish their own advertising rule sets. NAR's Article 12 SOP 12-9 sets the federal-association baseline (firm name and state of licensure on every advertising surface). State commissions layer additional requirements on font hierarchy, license-number placement, broker-affiliation prominence, and definition of advertising for digital surfaces. The more-restrictive rule controls. Multi-state brokerage sites handle the variation at the page-template and footer-variant layer so the compliance surface ships per state without per-page editorial review.
Texas Real Estate Commission: team-name conspicuousness rule.
TREC Rule 535.155 governs real estate advertising and has been updated through multiple amendment cycles. Team names must include a clarifying term (team, group, associates) that indicates the team's relationship to the sponsoring broker, and the sponsoring broker's name must be displayed in a manner reasonably calculated to be conspicuous. A luxury team site that ships the team brand in 48pt and the brokerage name in 8pt grey footer text fails the conspicuousness standard. The compliant pattern carries the brokerage disclosure at meaningful prominence in the same page region as the team name.
California Department of Real Estate: license-number visibility.
California Business and Professions Code Section 10140.6 and DRE regulations require the broker's license number on every solicitation directed to the public, including websites and social profiles. The Bureau of Real Estate (DRE's earlier name) issued advisories clarifying the requirement applies to digital surfaces. License-number disclosure has to be visible at the surface level, not buried under disclosure menus or accessed through additional clicks. Team and agent sites also disclose the responsible broker license number alongside the team or agent license.
Florida Real Estate Commission: broker-of-record disclosure.
Florida Statutes Chapter 475 and FREC Rule 61J2 govern advertising. The brokerage name must appear in a manner that does not deceive or confuse the public about the brokerage's role. Team and individual sales associate names cannot appear more prominently than the brokerage name. FREC has cited brokerage-prominence violations in administrative actions. The operating standard is brokerage prominence at least equal to team or agent prominence in the same advertising piece, with the brokerage license disclosed clearly.
New York Department of State: affiliated-broker prominence and team naming.
DOS regulations (19 NYCRR Part 175) govern real estate brokerage advertising in New York. Advertisements must include the licensed broker's name in a clear and conspicuous manner. DOS has issued guidance on team naming clarifying that team names cannot imply independent brokerage status when the team is associated with a sponsoring broker. New York's RLS-versus-MLS landscape (the NYC anomaly) adds an overlay because StreetEasy syndication and Real Estate Board of New York rules also carry advertising-disclosure carriage for participating brokerages.
What multi-state brokerages ask about advertising variance before they ship a national site template.
[ 01 ] Which advertising requirements actually vary across TREC, DRE, FREC, and DOS? +
[ 02 ] What does TREC require on team-name versus broker-name display in Texas? +
[ 03 ] We operate in three states. How do we handle the variation at the site-template level? +
If your brokerage operates in more than one state and the same page template ships everywhere, the more-restrictive rule is already controlling and silently failing the others. Book a brokerage SEO diagnostic.
We read your existing page templates, footer variants, license-number disclosure placement, and team-versus-broker prominence patterns against TREC Rule 535.155, California Business and Professions Code Section 10140.6, FREC Rule 61J2, and DOS 19 NYCRR Part 175. Output is the per-state-per-template ledger plus the rebuild path that handles every jurisdiction at the template layer. Funnels into our /broker-seo/ retainer when the rework spans the full template library.