Ask ten real estate wholesalers whether the Do Not Call Registry applies to a call offering to buy someone's house, and a confident majority will say no — "we're buying, not selling, so it doesn't count." That confidence outpaces what the law actually says. There's a real distinction courts have recognized, but it's narrower and more fact-dependent than the blanket rule wholesalers tell each other.
The definitional gap this rests on
The TCPA defines "telephone solicitation" as a call made for the purpose of encouraging the called party to purchase, rent, or invest in property, goods, or services. The FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule is structured the same way. Read literally, a call where you're the one offering to buy — not asking the homeowner to buy anything — sits outside that definition. That's not a wholesaling exemption Congress or the FTC wrote in; it's a reading of the existing text that some courts have accepted and others might not.
Jance: the pure-offer case that succeeded
In Jance v. Homerun Offer LLC (D. Ariz. 2021), a federal court dismissed a DNC/telemarketing claim against a company that called a homeowner to offer to purchase her property. The court's reasoning tracked the definitional gap above: the calls weren't telemarketing under the statute because they weren't encouraging the plaintiff to buy anything. The autodialer claim in the same case was allowed to proceed — the DNC theory specifically was what failed.
Coffey: the same theory, reversed on appeal
Four years later, a different Arizona district court dismissed a nearly identical claim against Fast Easy Offer on the same reasoning. In June 2026, the Ninth Circuit reversed. The appellate court held the plaintiff had plausibly alleged something Jance didn't involve: that the company's actual business purpose was collecting leads it couldn't convert into direct purchases and referring them to a real estate brokerage in exchange for a share of the resulting commission. Under Chesbro v. Best Buy Stores, a case the Ninth Circuit has relied on before, what controls is the caller's real purpose — not whether the script, read on its face, sounds like a buy offer or a sell pitch.
Why this matters for a typical wholesaling operation
A lot of wholesaling business models involve exactly the pattern Coffey flagged: making offers on properties you can't or won't close on yourself, then referring the seller — or the deal — to an agent, a cash-buyer network, or a brokerage, often for a fee. If any part of your calling program works that way, Coffey is the more relevant case for your exposure, not Jance.
A second pattern: bundling services into the offer
A separate line of cases looks at what else is being pitched alongside the purchase offer. In Bramlett v. RES 360 LLC and Peach City Properties LLC (N.D. Ga., March 2026), the defendants offered to buy homes while also advertising they'd handle the entire transaction — appraisal, title work, escrow, paperwork — for a fee taken out of the purchase price. A federal court found this plausibly alleged a purpose of encouraging the purchase of those bundled services, not just facilitating a straightforward property sale, and let the claim proceed. A pure "I'll pay you X for your house" offer and an offer that also sells the seller on a packaged closing process are meaningfully different calls under this reasoning.
What this doesn't mean
None of this adds up to "wholesaling calls are exempt" or its opposite, "wholesaling calls always violate the TCPA." It means the legal question turns on specific facts — what you're actually offering, whether there's a referral or revenue-share arrangement, whether services beyond the pure purchase are part of the pitch — and those facts get litigated case by case, in specific courts, none of which bind courts everywhere. Jance and Coffey are both from Arizona federal courts inside the Ninth Circuit. A court in a different circuit isn't required to follow either one, and a state's own mini-TCPA statute may define "solicitation" more broadly than federal law does regardless of how the federal question comes out. See state mini-TCPA laws for what's independently verified there.
The practical takeaway
If your calling model is genuinely a pure, no-strings purchase offer — you buy the house yourself, no referral fee, no bundled services — the strongest existing precedent for that specific fact pattern is favorable. The moment a referral, revenue share, or bundled service enters the picture, the more recent and more authoritative precedent runs the other way. Given how unsettled this is, the safer operating assumption for most wholesaling programs is to build consent and litigator-screening practices as though DNC and TCPA obligations apply, rather than betting a legal theory that's still being litigated in your favor.
That's true regardless of which side of this line you land on: a screening step doesn't depend on winning the definitional argument, and it protects against the specific population — serial TCPA litigators — most likely to test it. See how a litigator scrub works, or check a single number free.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a written exemption in the TCPA for real estate wholesalers?
No. There's no line in the statute or the FTC's rule that says "calls to buy real estate are exempt." What exists is a definitional gap some courts have found: the TCPA defines "telephone solicitation" as a call encouraging the called party to purchase, rent, or invest in something (47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4)), and a call offering to buy the called party's property doesn't obviously fit that wording. That's an interpretation courts have applied case by case, not a standalone exemption written into the law.
What did the Ninth Circuit actually decide in Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer?
It reversed a district court's dismissal of a DNC/TCPA claim against a company that called homeowners offering to buy their houses. The lower court had dismissed on the same "we're buying, not selling" theory Jance succeeded on. The Ninth Circuit reinstated the claim because the plaintiff plausibly alleged the company's actual purpose was to generate unconverted leads it could sell or refer to a real estate brokerage for a share of the resulting commission — under Chesbro v. Best Buy Stores, 705 F.3d 913 (9th Cir. 2012), it's the caller's real purpose that controls, not the literal script. A pure buy offer with no secondary referral angle is a different fact pattern from what Coffey involved.
Does bundling other services into a wholesale offer change the analysis?
Some courts have found it does. In Bramlett v. RES 360 LLC and Peach City Properties LLC (N.D. Ga., March 2026), a motion to dismiss was denied in part where the defendants offered to buy homes while also advertising they'd "handle everything" — appraisal, title, escrow, paperwork — for a fee deducted from the purchase price. The court found this plausibly alleged a purpose of encouraging the purchase of services, not just facilitating a property sale. A pure purchase offer and a purchase offer bundled with paid transaction services are not the same call under this reasoning.
If my calls really are just 'I want to buy your house, what's your price,' am I safe?
Jance suggests that fact pattern, standing alone, has succeeded in getting a DNC claim dismissed. But this is one district court decision, in one circuit, on a motion to dismiss — not a final judgment on the merits, and not binding outside its own jurisdiction. It also assumes there's genuinely no referral arrangement, revenue share, or bundled paid service anywhere in how the lead gets used afterward. If any of those exist, Coffey is the more relevant precedent, not Jance. This is a real, unsettled area of law — treat any confident claim that wholesaling calls are categorically DNC-exempt with real skepticism.
Does this analysis apply outside the Ninth Circuit?
The specific cases discussed here — Jance, Coffey — are from Arizona federal courts and the Ninth Circuit, which covers Arizona, California, and several other western states. Courts elsewhere aren't bound by Ninth Circuit reasoning, though they may find it persuasive. Bramlett, from the Northern District of Georgia, suggests the "bundled services" theory isn't confined to one circuit. Don't assume a favorable ruling in one jurisdiction transfers automatically to yours, and don't assume a state's own mini-TCPA statute defines "solicitation" the same way the federal TCPA does — some define it more broadly.
Sources
- 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4) — definition of telephone solicitation (Cornell LII)
- 16 C.F.R. § 310.2 — Telemarketing Sales Rule definitions (eCFR)
- Jance v. Homerun Offer LLC, No. CV-20-00482-TUC-JGZ (D. Ariz. 2021) — CourtListener docket
- Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer, LLC, No. 25-4066 (9th Cir. June 4, 2026) — opinion