Ask ten wholesalers what Texas law says about assigning contracts and you'll get ten shrugs. That's a problem, because since September 1, 2017, the law has been specific — and the trend line on enforcement only goes one direction.
Texas Occupations Code §1101.0045 — added by Senate Bill 2212 — draws the line like this: a person can acquire an option or an equitable interest in a contract to purchase real property, and can sell or offer that option or assign that contract, only if they disclose the nature of their interest to the potential buyer. In plain English: you may sell your position in a contract. You may not market the house as if it were yours to sell.
Skip the disclosure and the statute's teeth show: selling the contract without disclosing your equitable interest constitutes real estate brokerage — which requires a license you don't have. That converts an everyday wholesale deal into unlicensed brokerage activity, which puts you in TREC's jurisdiction: administrative penalties assessed per violation, cease-and-desist exposure, and a deal a counterparty can attack after the fact. The marketing most wholesalers actually run — photos of the house, "must sell this weekend," an address and a price — is exactly the fact pattern that looks like brokering someone else's property.
The wholesale playbook spread nationally through courses and Facebook groups, and most of it was written as if state law were a footnote. Meanwhile the practice got big enough that legislators and regulators noticed — that's precisely why §1101.0045 exists. The people teaching "you don't need a license to wholesale" aren't lying, exactly. You don't need a license if your disclosure practice is airtight, on every deal, in writing, every time. Run honest odds on that across a whole career. And note what disclosure does to your marketing: the moment you tell buyers you're selling a contract position rather than a house, half the retail-adjacent buyer pool cools. Compliance isn't just paperwork — it changes the economics.
Here's the part the courses skip: a license doesn't end your wholesaling career. It upgrades it.
Every year this business professionalizes a little more: more disclosure requirements, more scrutiny, more counterparties who know the rules. The operators who last aren't the ones with the cleverest workaround — they're the ones who made compliance a moat. Getting licensed takes months, not years. The exposure you're carrying right now, deal by deal, doesn't expire on its own.
Myers is the Texas brokerage built for exactly this transition.
This article summarizes Texas Occupations Code §1101.0045 in general terms and is not legal advice. Statutes get amended and facts matter; consult a Texas real estate attorney about your specific situation.