Court Holds Real Estate Offers Not Solicitations Under TCPA

The Case Behind the Real Estate TCPA Ruling

In Aussieker v. Aghazadeh, a consumer alleged that he received unsolicited communications concerning a Sacramento property. His personal number was registered on the National Do Not Call Registry, he had not consented to the contact, and he had never been the defendant’s customer.

The first message reportedly asked whether the recipient was open to options for selling the property. Additional messages sought permission to make a proposal and referred to names such as Yuna Homes and Golden Capital. The complaint characterized the communications as part of a real estate wholesaling operation that contacted potential sellers, located potential buyers, and earned the difference between the two transactions.

In July 2025, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of California recommended dismissing the TCPA claim. The recommendation reasoned that an offer to buy property did not encourage the recipient to purchase, rent, or invest in property, goods, or services. In other words, the transaction arrow pointed in the opposite direction.

The recommendation relied heavily on the Arizona district court’s decision in Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer LLC. That court had dismissed a similar putative class action involving messages asking a homeowner whether she had given up on selling her property. At the district-court level, the communications were treated as offers to make a purchase from the recipient rather than solicitations asking her to buy something.

What Counts as a Telephone Solicitation Under the TCPA?

The TCPA defines a telephone solicitation as initiating a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services. Federal regulations use materially identical language.

That wording creates an important question: Who must be encouraged to make the purchase?

The buying-versus-selling distinction

Courts adopting the narrower interpretation focus on the recipient. If a company calls Jane to sell her a solar installation, Jane is being encouraged to purchase a service. That is a conventional solicitation. If a home investor calls Jane and offers to purchase her house, Jane is being encouraged to sell an asset. The investor, not Jane, would make the purchase.

This distinction has appeared outside real estate. In Murphy v. DCI Biologicals Orlando, LLC, a court concluded that communications offering to pay a recipient for plasma were not telephone solicitations under the relevant definition. The sender wanted to buy something from the recipient, not sell something to him.

Likewise, courts in cases such as Jance v. Homerun Offer LLC and Hunsinger v. Offer, LLC found support for treating genuine home-purchase inquiries differently from ordinary sales pitches. The Seventh Circuit’s 2025 decision in Hulce v. Zipongo Inc. also emphasized that the TCPA’s language generally concerns a purchase by the communication’s recipient.

Commercial motivation is not automatically enough

A caller usually expects to make money. That fact alone does not transform every business communication into a TCPA telephone solicitation. A buyer hopes to profit from acquiring a house, just as a pawnshop hopes to profit from buying a watch. Profit may explain the call, but it does not necessarily mean the recipient was encouraged to purchase anything.

The Arizona district court in Coffey acknowledged that a home-buying company could earn what looked like an effective fee through a below-market purchase price or related services. Even so, it initially concluded that the homeowner would receive money from the sale rather than pay the company for an expressly advertised product or service.

That reasoning offered businesses a clean rule, perhaps suspiciously clean for a statute famous for turning commas into expensive litigation.

The FCC’s Guidance on Real Estate Purchase Calls

The Federal Communications Commission addressed a related issue in 2005. It explained that a real estate agent representing only a potential buyer may contact someone who has advertised property for sale without making a telephone solicitation, provided the purpose is simply to discuss a possible sale to that represented buyer.

The limits of that guidance matter. It describes a buyer’s representative calling a person who has already advertised property for sale. It does not necessarily protect mass texts sent to owners who never listed their homes. Nor does it cover a dual-purpose campaign designed to steer recipients into brokerage, financing, title, consulting, or listing services.

A message that says, “I represent a buyer interested in the home you listed,” is easier to characterize as a purchase inquiry. A message that begins, “We want to buy your house,” but later funnels most respondents to affiliated agents may receive a less enthusiastic judicial reception.

The Major 2026 Update: The Ninth Circuit Reverses Coffey

Any current discussion of real estate offers and the TCPA must include what happened next. On June 4, 2026, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal in Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer, LLC and returned the case for further proceedings.

The appellate court did not announce that every offer to buy a house is a telephone solicitation. Instead, it focused on the alleged purpose behind initiating the communications. The complaint claimed that Fast Easy Offer sometimes purchased homes directly but directed many respondents to affiliated real estate professionals who provided traditional brokerage services.

According to the complaint, as many as nine out of ten responding consumers could become brokerage clients rather than direct-sale customers. Accepting those allegations as true at the motion-to-dismiss stage, the Ninth Circuit held that the plaintiff plausibly alleged a purpose of encouraging homeowners to purchase real estate brokerage services.

Context can reveal a hidden sales purpose

The Ninth Circuit relied on its earlier decision in Chesbro v. Best Buy Stores, L.P., which explained that a communication need not explicitly mention a product or service when its commercial implication is clear from context. Courts can examine more than the isolated words appearing on a phone screen.

Relevant context may include the caller’s business model, landing pages, affiliated companies, call scripts, compensation arrangements, conversion statistics, follow-up communications, and what happens after a recipient responds. A message wearing a buyer’s hat can still be part of a sales funnel. The hat does not receive its own legal immunity.

Because Aussieker relied on the district-court reasoning later rejected in Coffey, businesses operating within the Ninth Circuit should not treat the earlier “offers to buy are not solicitations” cases as a dependable safe harbor. The current inquiry is more fact-sensitive.

What the Decision Does Not Resolve

A pure purchase offer may still be different

The Ninth Circuit did not squarely decide whether a genuine, stand-alone offer to purchase property from a recipient qualifies as a solicitation when no product or service is being marketed to that person. The court addressed allegations that the communications also generated customers for brokerage services.

A direct buyer making a legitimate offer for its own account therefore has a stronger argument than a lead generator collecting prospective sellers for agents, wholesalers, or service providers. Still, the company’s actual operations must match its script.

Section 227(b) can apply independently

The solicitation question generally concerns the TCPA’s do-not-call protections under Section 227(c). Separate restrictions under Section 227(b) address calls made with an artificial or prerecorded voice and certain calls or texts using an automatic telephone dialing system.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, an automatic telephone dialing system generally must use a random or sequential number generator in the manner required by the statutory definition. But prerecorded or artificial-voice restrictions remain separate. A company does not escape every TCPA issue merely because its communication is labeled a purchase offer.

State laws may be broader

Federal TCPA analysis is only one layer of the compliance stack. States increasingly regulate commercial calls and texts through mini-TCPA statutes, telemarketing laws, registration requirements, calling-hour restrictions, consent rules, and state do-not-call lists. Some definitions may reach conduct that falls outside the federal definition of a telephone solicitation.

Caller identification rules, deceptive-practices laws, licensing requirements, and privacy statutes may create additional exposure. A favorable interpretation of one TCPA provision is not a permission slip with unlimited refills.

Why Real Estate Businesses Should Still Take TCPA Compliance Seriously

Under Section 227(c), a person who receives more than one covered call within a 12-month period from or on behalf of the same entity may pursue statutory remedies. Recoverable damages can reach $500 per violation and may be increased to as much as $1,500 when a violation is willful or knowing.

Those figures become uncomfortable quickly in a putative class action. Ten thousand messages multiplied by even the base statutory amount can turn an inexpensive outreach campaign into the world’s least enjoyable math problem.

Real estate companies, investors, brokerages, and marketing vendors should consider the following safeguards:

• Screen covered campaigns against the National Do Not Call Registry and applicable state lists.
• Maintain a company-specific do-not-call list and honor opt-out requests promptly.
• Identify the actual caller, buyer, seller, and affiliated service providers accurately.
• Review scripts, websites, follow-up messages, and sales workflows as one connected campaign.
• Avoid describing a lead-generation program as a direct purchase operation when most leads are sold or transferred.
• Evaluate the technology used to place calls and send texts, including prerecorded or artificial voices.
• Use written contracts requiring vendors to follow federal and state communication laws.
• Retain consent records, suppression logs, campaign versions, vendor instructions, and complaint histories.
• Obtain legal review before launching high-volume campaigns across multiple states.

The Federal Trade Commission instructs covered telemarketers to synchronize their calling lists with the National Do Not Call Registry at least every 31 days. Even when a company believes its calls are purchase inquiries, voluntarily applying strong suppression and opt-out practices can reduce complaints and strengthen a reasonable-compliance defense.

The Practical Meaning of “Purpose”

The most important question is no longer limited to what a single message says. Courts may ask why the company initiated the contact and what commercial result the campaign was designed to produce.

Consider three common models:

1. Direct acquisition: A company buys homes for its own portfolio and does not sell brokerage or transaction services to owners. Its purchase-offer argument is comparatively strong.
2. Mixed acquisition and brokerage: The company buys a small number of properties but refers most respondents to affiliated agents. The communications may have a dual purpose and could qualify as solicitations.
3. Lead generation disguised as buying: The sender has little intention or ability to buy homes and primarily sells leads to agents or investors. Courts are more likely to look through the friendly “cash buyer” language.

Labels matter less than evidence. A company calling itself a “local homebuyer” will not control the legal analysis if its contracts, revenue reports, and follow-up process tell a different story.

Conclusion

The lower-court decisions in Aussieker, Jance, and the original Coffey ruling recognized a logical distinction: an offer to buy property from a homeowner is not the same as asking that homeowner to purchase something. That reasoning remains relevant to genuine purchase transactions.

But the Ninth Circuit’s 2026 Coffey decision demonstrates why the headline cannot be treated as a universal TCPA exemption. When a home-buying message is designed to generate brokerage clients or sell related services, a court may consider the campaign’s wider purpose and context. Real estate businesses should build compliance around what their outreach actually accomplishesnot merely the first sentence of the script.

Practical Experiences and Lessons From Real Estate Outreach

The following composite examples reflect recurring compliance situations rather than the facts of any single company or lawsuit.

Experience 1: The genuine cash buyer

A small investment business contacted owners about purchasing properties for its own rental portfolio. It used trained employees, did not offer brokerage services, and did not sell the leads. When an owner declined, the number was immediately suppressed. The company’s records showed that its revenue came from owning or reselling acquired propertiesnot referral fees.

This structure supports the argument that the communications were authentic purchase inquiries. Even so, the business screened numbers, respected opt-outs, restricted calling hours, and kept detailed records. Its management understood that winning a legal argument after two years of litigation is considerably more expensive than preventing the complaint.

Experience 2: The buyer that was really a brokerage funnel

Another operation advertised itself as a cash homebuyer, but it purchased very few properties. Most owners who responded were transferred to affiliated agents and encouraged to sign listing agreements. Employees received bonuses for completed listings, while the “cash offer” function mainly opened the door.

Under the Ninth Circuit’s approach in Coffey, those facts could support an inference that the purpose of initiating the messages was to sell brokerage services. Editing the opening text would not solve the underlying problem. The revenue model, employee incentives, referral agreements, and conversion process would still reveal the campaign’s commercial objective.

Experience 3: The opt-out that traveled nowhere

A homeowner replied “STOP,” and one campaign correctly suppressed the number. Unfortunately, the company’s second marketing vendor used a separate database and contacted the homeowner again. A third affiliate followed a week later. Each team believed someone else managed the do-not-call list.

The lesson is operational: an internal do-not-call request must follow the consumer across brands, vendors, campaigns, and affiliated entities when the law requires it. A beautiful written policy stored in a forgotten folder is not a functioning compliance system. Suppression should be centralized, tested, and documented.

Experience 4: The high-volume vendor problem

A real estate investor hired a vendor that promised thousands of inexpensive leads. The investor supplied target ZIP codes but asked few questions about how messages were sent, where the numbers came from, or whether the platform used regulated technology. Complaints arrived, and both parties pointed at the contract.

Outsourcing the button-pushing does not automatically outsource legal exposure. Businesses should audit vendors, approve scripts, understand dialing technology, require suppression controls, and preserve evidence showing who initiated each communication. Indemnification language may help allocate costs, but it cannot stop a lawsuit from naming everyone in sight.

Experience 5: The records that changed the conversation

One company retained time-stamped consent data, do-not-call scrubbing results, campaign scripts, opt-out logs, vendor instructions, and proof of its direct purchases. When a demand letter arrived, counsel could reconstruct the communication instead of interviewing five former contractors and hoping someone remembered a spreadsheet.

That documentation did not guarantee victory, but it allowed the business to assess risk quickly and respond with facts. TCPA disputes often turn on purpose, consent, technology, and agency. Reliable records speak to all four. Memory, by contrast, tends to become remarkably shy once statutory damages enter the room.

Final practical takeaway: Treat every real estate call or text as part of a complete commercial journey. If the journey ends with the company buying the recipient’s property, the purchase-offer distinction may remain meaningful. If it ends with the recipient paying for brokerage or another service, calling the first message a “buyer inquiry” will not necessarily keep it outside the TCPA.