Every flyer, email, post and sign you put out is an advertisement, and the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC) treats it that way. Newer agents rarely get in trouble for outright fraud. They get in trouble for habits: a signature without the licensed name, a "fully leased" claim that is one bay off, a text to a list, a review a friend was asked to write.

This lesson covers advertising, calls, texts, email, social media, testimonials, and licensed data and photos. It ends with a listing-marketing checklist and a line-by-line review of a draft email blast and social post.

Builds on. Lesson 1 (your broker of record owns your marketing), Lesson 3 (agency relationships and confidentiality), and Lesson 4 (records). For scripts, cadence and the format-by-format advertising table, see Course 23, Lesson 4 and Course 23, Lesson 5. For the listing package, see Course 22, Lesson 4 and Course 22, Lesson 7.

This lesson is education, not legal advice. Rules change, so confirm current text at flrules.org and leg.state.fl.us. Send legal questions to your broker of record and a Florida attorney, tax questions to a CPA, and financing questions to a licensed lender. Your job is to spot the issue and route it, not to answer it yourself.

What counts as an advertisement, and the licensed name

An advertisement is any message that promotes you, the firm, a property or a service. Letters, postcards, email blasts, signatures, social posts, videos, web pages, signs, flyers, teasers and offering memoranda (OMs, the marketing package for a property for sale) all count. Under Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.) Rule 61J2-10.025, as published:

Reasonable persons must know they are dealing with a real estate licensee.
The licensed name of the brokerage firm must appear.
If your personal name appears, use at least your last name as registered with FREC.
On an internet site, the firm name goes next to, or directly above or below, your contact information (mailing or street address, email, phone).
No ad may be fraudulent, false, deceptive or misleading.

The rule has no commercial carve-out, and we found no exemption for business cards or short posts, so do not assume one. It does not itself require a phone number. It speaks of internet sites, so applying it to social posts, signatures and videos is the conservative reading most brokerages follow. Follow it too.

The licensed name recorded with FREC is MaxLife Realty LLC. Write MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC, and never "MaxLife Commercial" alone. Your broker of record owns the exact wording and layout, including any trade-name registration (F.A.C. Rule 61J2-10.034). We found no FREC guidance that speaks directly to the "a division of" phrasing, so use it exactly as your broker approves.

Format	Must show	Watch for
Letter or postcard	Licensed name, your registered last name, contact details	Logo-only return address
Email signature	Licensed name next to phone and email	Old template with the short name only
Social post	Licensed name in the caption or profile block next to the contact point	Personal account, phone number, no firm name
Video	Licensed name on the end slide and in the description	Voice-over only
Website or landing page	Licensed name beside the contact block	Footer far from the phone number
Sign	Licensed name, and your last name if a name appears	Team name larger than the firm name
Listing flyer	Licensed name, your registered last name	Seller or tenant logo with no firm name
OM	Licensed name on the cover or footer, plus disclaimers	Recycled OM with another firm's name

Team names follow F.A.C. Rule 61J2-10.026. A team name may include "team" or "group" but cannot include words such as "Realty," "Properties," "Real Estate," "Company" or "LLC," and it cannot print larger than the firm name. "Small-Bay Flex Group at MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC" and "Single-Tenant NNN Team at MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC" are compliant in form. "Flex Realty" and "NNN Properties" are not. NNN means triple net, a lease where the tenant pays taxes, insurance and most operating costs. Have your broker approve any team name first.

Also, never display an association name or designation you are not entitled to use, such as REALTOR or CCIM (F.A.C. Rule 61J2-10.027).

The consequences are real. F.S. 475.25(1)(c) makes false or misleading advertising a ground for discipline, and F.S. 475.42(1)(n) separately bars false or misleading information used to sell or lease Florida real estate. An ad that omits the brokerage name can be a $1,000 citation (F.A.C. Rule 61J2-24.002), and false advertising has its own first-offense range in the guidelines. Those ranges are not a fee schedule, so check flrules.org for the current table. See Lesson 2 for how complaints work.

Truth in advertising

State facts you can source. Label everything else. Lesson 2 draws the line between puffery (opinion) and fact (anything a reader could check). This table applies it to advertising.

Statement	Type	Fix
"Best-located flex park in the county"	Opinion (puffery)	Fine, but use it sparingly
"Tenant has 9 years remaining on the lease"	Fact	Cite the lease and the date
"Clear height 28 feet" (interior height under the roof structure)	Fact	Cite the survey or plans, or write "per seller, verify"
"Tenant pays all expenses"	Fact about the lease	Read the lease, since roof and structure often stay with the landlord
"Zoned for industrial outdoor storage (IOS)"	Legal status	Confirm with the zoning authority in writing, or write "per seller, verify"
"6.25% cap"	Calculation	Show NOI and price, and label in-place versus pro forma
"Guaranteed 8% return"	Promise	Delete
"Appraised at $3,000,000"	Mislabel	Say "broker opinion of value (BOV)"

NOI, cap rate and pro forma are defined in the Lesson 2 key terms. In-place means what the leases pay today. A pro forma is a projection with assumptions, so it must be labeled as one.

Never guarantee price, timing, renewal or return. Disclaimers such as "buyer to verify" help, but they do not cure a statement you know is wrong.

A BOV is not an appraisal. F.S. 475.612(3) lets a broker or sales associate give a price opinion or opinion of value in the ordinary course of business, but it cannot be referred to or construed as an appraisal, and F.S. 475.612(2) bars holding yourself out as a certified or licensed appraiser. The statute prescribes no wording, so the line below is our suggested language, which your broker may adjust. An NNN opinion should state the cap rate basis and lease assumptions. An industrial opinion should state the comparables, such as clear height, bay size and yard. See Course 22, Lesson 4.

(a) Situation: Footer for a BOV or pricing memo. "This broker opinion of value is not an appraisal. It was prepared by a Florida real estate licensee of MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC, who is not a certified or licensed appraiser. It states an opinion of likely market value based on the comparables and assumptions shown."

Be honest about being new. Do not claim years, rankings or closed volume you cannot document. Do not claim a deal you did not handle. Use firm-level claims only from documents your broker approved. "I focus on small-bay flex and single-tenant NNN in Orange and Seminole counties" is true on day one.

Calls, texts, and email

Course 23, Lesson 4 has the scripts and routines. This table is the compliance summary. Do Not Call (DNC) lists are registries of numbers whose owners have opted out of sales calls. They mainly protect personal numbers, but you often cannot tell a personal cell from a business line, so treat unknown numbers as protected.

Rule	What it means for you
Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (F.S. 501.059)	Autodialed or recorded sales calls and texts need the person's prior express written consent. Damages are the greater of actual loss or $500, and up to triple if willful. The statute speaks of consumers and landline or mobile numbers, so whether it reaches calls to a business owner's cell is unsettled. Follow it
Calling hours and attempts (F.S. 501.616(6), the commercial telephone seller rule)	No sales calls before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, and no more than three calls per person in 24 hours on the same subject. We found no exemption for licensees in that subsection, so follow it and confirm the current text
Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA, federal)	No autodialed or prerecorded calls or texts to a cell number without proper consent. Damages start at $500 per violation
Do Not Call lists	Scrub personal or unknown numbers against the national and Florida lists every 31 days
CAN-SPAM (federal email law)	No business-to-business exception. Honest headers and subject line, a clear advertisement notice, your postal address and an opt-out honored within 10 business days
Recording (F.S. 934.03)	All parties must consent. Violation is generally a third-degree felony, and F.S. 934.10 sets civil damages of at least $1,000

Do:

Dial by hand.
Text only someone who has agreed to texts, and say who you are in the first message.
Keep a do-not-contact log for five years (our practice, like brokerage records).
Honor a stop request the same day, even though the email rule allows up to 10 business days.
Put your postal address and an opt-out line on every email.
Announce any recording and wait for a clear yes.

Do not:

Use bulk texting or ringless voicemail.
Use a purchased list you have not scrubbed.
Send unsolicited faxes.
Record anyone without consent, including on video meetings.

Federal law allows recording with one party's consent, but you cannot rely on that for a call involving a Florida party. Do not record a walk-through of a tenant's plant or warehouse where employees are talking without notice and consent.

(b) Situation: You want to record or transcribe a call, including with an AI note taker. "I use a recording tool for my notes. Is it all right if I record this call?" Continue only after a clear yes, and note the consent in your file.

Solicitation ethics

Prospecting is allowed. Deceiving people is not. If you are a REALTOR, or hold a CCIM or SIOR designation, association codes (for example NAR Article 16) add duties about exclusive relationships. Even if you hold none of them, make respecting exclusives your standard.

Situation	Do	Do not
Owner is under another broker's exclusive listing	Ask that broker, in writing, for the expiration date. Use general mailings to a whole farm	Call the one owner you spotted on a competitor's sign or listing feed
You have no buyer or tenant	Say you are building a buyer list	Say "I have a buyer" when you do not
First contact	Give your name, the firm and why you are calling	Use a false pretext, such as posing as a survey
Owner calls you first	Ask about any exclusive, then discuss future terms only	Give substantive service to a client of another broker

A general mailing to every owner of multi-tenant flex parks in a county is fine. A call to the single owner you saw on a rival's listing is not. Florida law reaches false pretenses through F.S. 475.25(1)(b). Never say anything negative about the other broker. See Lesson 3 and Course 23, Lesson 4.

(c) Situation: The owner says, "I am already listed with someone." "Thanks for telling me. I will not discuss your property while you are under that agreement. If it expires without a sale, may I send you a market note then?"

A personal account is still advertising when it promotes your business. Apply the licensed-name rule to profiles and posts, and get approval before posting about a client.

Post	Never post
Market notes in your own words	Client confidential information
Listings your broker approved, with the licensed name	Unapproved deal terms or pricing
"Just closed" only with the client's written permission	Buyer or seller identity, or "under contract" news the seller has not approved
Tenant names only where the lease and seller allow it	Photos of tenants, employees, trucks with company names, or rent rolls

Only the listing or selling broker may say "sold" (NAR Standard of Practice 12-7 for REALTORs, and a sound standard for everyone). If you did not do the deal, say so or do not post it. Disclose any interest you or your family hold in a property you advertise, and keep hashtags and profile claims honest.

If you or the firm run a website or landing page, link the privacy policy and terms. Privacy basics at a high level:

Say honestly what you collect, such as names, emails and phone numbers from a form.
Make phone and text consent wording accurate and specific.
If a page uses cookies or analytics, the policy must describe them honestly. A cookie notice that does not match what the page does is its own problem.
Do not add tracking pixels, cookie tools or third-party forms to a firm page on your own. Your broker or the firm's web team owns the cookie notice and the policy.
Do not ask visitors to send Social Security or bank account numbers through a form or email.

Data-breach duties are covered in Lesson 6.

Testimonials, reviews, and endorsements

Two federal sources apply. The FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255, revised 2023) say an endorsement must reflect honest experience and that any connection a reader would not expect, such as payment, a free service, or a family or employer relationship, must be clearly disclosed next to the endorsement. The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule (16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024) bans fake reviews, review incentives tied to a positive or negative sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews, and intimidation to suppress honest reviews. A fake or misleading testimonial is also false advertising under F.S. 475.25(1)(c). We found no Florida rule written specifically for reviews, so the same honesty standard applies.

Situation	Rule	What to do
Client testimonial	Must be a real client's honest experience	Get written permission, quote accurately, keep the file
Colleague, family or vendor review	Insider relationships must be disclosed	Say "reviewer is my colleague"
Gift or discount for a review	An incentive tied to sentiment is banned, and any compensation must be disclosed	Ask for honest reviews, offer no reward tied to sentiment, and ask your broker first
Invented or bought reviews	Prohibited	Never
Negative review	No threats or intimidation to remove it	Reply calmly, route to your broker
Results claims	Must be substantiated and typical	Do not quote a cap rate or days on market unless documented

Violations can bring civil penalties. The FTC's inflation-adjusted maximum is $53,088 per violation (set January 2025, and the FTC has said it applies again for 2026), and the figure can change, so confirm the current amount. For scale only, 10 violations x $53,088 = $530,880. The FTC decides what counts as a violation, so treat that as arithmetic, not a forecast.

Licensed data, photos, video, and music

Owning a subscription is not owning the content. Read the license, and ask your broker when it is unclear.

Asset	Default rule	Do
Licensed comp databases (CoStar, Crexi and similar)	Licensed for your use, and usually not for republishing	Summarize in your own words. No screenshots in an OM, flyer or BOV unless your license says so (Course 22, Lesson 2)
Someone else's listing photos and text	Copyrighted	Link to it. Do not copy it
Photographer's images	Photographer usually owns the copyright unless assigned in writing	Get a written license covering web, print and term
Seller's or client's photos	Ownership is unclear	Get written permission and confirm who shot them
Drone photos and video	FAA Part 107 requires a remote pilot certificate for commercial flights	Hire a certificated pilot, ask for proof, let the pilot check airspace. Florida also limits drone imaging of private property for surveillance without written consent (F.S. 934.50), so get the owner's written OK (Course 22, Lesson 7)
Video music	Needs a commercial-use license	Use tracks licensed for business. Platform libraries may limit business use
People, tenants, tenant logos	Privacy and trademark limits	Get a release for identifiable people. Name a tenant factually, imply no endorsement, get your broker's approval
Renderings and edited images	Can mislead	Label "rendering, not actual conditions"

Use versus republish is the key distinction. Using a database to research and advise is what you paid for. Copying its charts or comps into a document you hand to the public is republishing, and that usually needs separate permission.

Marketing listings compliantly

Run this checklist before any OM, flyer, teaser or email blast goes out. You own the checklist, and your broker of record signs off. A teaser is a short, anonymous summary of an offering. Industrial and NNN listings use the same list. See Course 22, Lesson 7 for building the package.

Item	Confirm
Licensed name	MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC, beside contact information
Seller approval	Written approval of the copy, price and terms as agreed in the listing agreement
Numbers	In-place NOI separate from pro forma, square footage with its source, dated rent roll
Tenant confidentiality	Confidentiality agreement signed before leases and rent rolls go out
Disclaimers	Information from seller and other sources, buyer to verify, BOV is not an appraisal
Claims	No guarantees, no unverified zoning or environmental statements
Assets	Photo, data and music permissions on file
Email blast extras	Postal address, advertisement notice and opt-out line
Record	Save the final version as sent in the deal file (Lesson 4)

A worked example (illustrative numbers, not market data)

Assumptions (invented, not market data and not MaxLife results): Alex Rivera, a newer sales associate, drafts an email blast for a single-tenant NNN dollar store in Lake County and a social post for a six-bay, 12,000 SF small-bay flex building in Orange County. The NNN asking price is $2,800,000. The lease pays $154,000 in base rent per year. A tenant renewal option, not yet exercised, would lift rent to $175,000. The flex building has 5 of 6 bays leased at 2,000 SF each. The seller has not yet approved the copy.

Draft line	Problem	Correction
Subject: "GUARANTEED 6.25% cap, must sell"	Guarantee, hype, unsupported cap	Plain subject with property type, county, price
"6.25% cap"	Uses unexercised rent	Show the in-place 5.50%
"Appraised at $3,000,000 by our team"	BOV called an appraisal	Cut it, or use BOV language
"Tenant will renew for sure"	Promise	Say the option is unexercised
"Lease and rent roll attached"	No confidentiality agreement	Offer after signing one
Signature: "Alex R., MaxLife Commercial"	Last name shortened, licensed name incomplete	Registered last name and the full licensed name
No opt-out or address	Missing CAN-SPAM elements	Add address, advertisement notice and "reply stop"
Post: "100% leased flex, 8% return guaranteed"	False occupancy, guarantee	Say 5 of 6 bays leased
Post photo: tenant's truck, company name and staff	Tenant privacy and permission	Use a building-only photo
Post: "#1 flex broker," trending song	Unsupported ranking, music license	Delete both

The arithmetic:

In-place cap: 154,000 ÷ 2,800,000 = 5.50%.
Claimed cap: 175,000 ÷ 2,800,000 = 6.25%.
NOI gap: 175,000 - 154,000 = $21,000, which is 13.6% above in-place (21,000 ÷ 154,000 = 0.136).
Price that in-place rent supports at 6.25%: 154,000 ÷ 0.0625 = $2,464,000. Asking exceeds that by 2,800,000 - 2,464,000 = $336,000, so the "6.25%" claim overstates what the in-place rent supports by $336,000.
Occupancy: 5 x 2,000 = 10,000 SF leased, and 10,000 ÷ 12,000 = 83.3%, not 100%.

(d) Situation: The corrected email, sent only after the seller approves it in writing. Subject: Single-tenant NNN dollar store, Lake County, $2,800,000. "[Name], MaxLife Commercial has a single-tenant NNN dollar store in Lake County listed at $2,800,000. In-place annual base rent is $154,000, a 5.50% cap rate on the asking price. The tenant holds a renewal option that has not been exercised, and any rent change from it is not included. Lease documents are available after you sign a confidentiality agreement. Pricing is the seller's ask, not an appraisal, and buyers should verify all information. Reply for the offering memorandum. To stop receiving my emails, reply 'stop.'"

Alex Rivera, Sales Associate

MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC

5401 S Kirkman Rd Suite 310, Orlando, FL 32819 · (000) 000-0000 · name@example.com

This is an advertisement.

(e) Situation: The corrected social post, after the seller approves it. "Small-bay flex, Orange County. Six bays, about 12,000 SF per seller, buyer to verify. Five of six bays leased. Message me for details. Alex Rivera | MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC | (000) 000-0000"

Notice what changed. Every number has a source or a label, nothing is promised, the tenant is not identifiable, and the licensed name sits beside the contact point.

Key takeaways

Everything you publish is an advertisement. Show the licensed name, MaxLife Commercial, a division of MaxLife Realty LLC, beside your contact information.
State facts you can source, label opinions and projections, and never guarantee price, timing or return.
A BOV is never an appraisal. Say so on the document.
Dial by hand, honor stops the same day, and get every party's consent before recording.
Never solicit an owner you know is under another broker's exclusive, and never use a false pretext.
Testimonials must be real and permitted. No fake reviews, no incentives tied to sentiment, and disclose any compensation or relationship.
Licensed data, photos, drone footage and music each carry their own permission. Get it in writing and file it, and get seller approval in writing before a listing goes out.

Next: Lesson 6 covers the federal and cross-cutting rules commercial agents meet.

Advertising, Prospecting, and Communication Rules