Using the word "Free" on your real estate website? Illinois Real Estate License Act

[Jawad Ihmoud]

I am looking to launch a website for my leasing business the City of Chicago.

The best part maybe of having a real estate broker helping you find an apartment and acting as your assistant is that the service is free.
I want to advertise this service as free, but I am not sure I can do this due to this section found in the Real Estate License Act of 2000, which mentions,

35) Advertising or offering merchandise or services

as free if any conditions or obligations necessary for receiving the merchandise or services are not disclosed in the same advertisement or offer. These conditions or obligations include without limitation the requirement that the recipient attend a promotional activity or visit a real estate site. As used in this subdivision (35), "free" includes terms such as "award", "prize", "no charge", "free of charge", "without charge", and similar words or phrases that reasonably lead a person to believe that one may receive or has been selected to receive something of value, without any conditions or obligations on the part of the recipient.

Our service offers no cost, no catch, and no commitment.

The client can simply reach out to us, we can suggest 4-8 buildings that fit their criteria and they can simply ghost us or if they choose they can tour with us.
The buildings that we research and suggest to our client are free without any sort of requirement to opt in and they can simply go and tour those buildings themselves or with us, regardless nothing comes out of their pocket.

Does this law apply to us?

I have reached out to several organizations including the IDFPR and we still cannot seem to find an answer for this. 

[Russell Brazil]

The Department of Justice and NAR have also entered into an antitrust settlement that states you can not advertise your services as free.