If your state licenses wholesaling, do you get licensed or change what you do?

California's Assembly Bill 1850 was introduced in February 2026 to define wholesaling and require a license for it. As of mid 2026 it hadn't cleared committee, so this isn't law and might never be, but I want to think through the choice before it's forced.

Option one is get licensed. You stop worrying about which trigger you tripped, you can market the property, you get MLS access. The cost is coursework, exam, a broker to hang under, continuing education, and the fact that as a licensee your disclosure duties to the seller go up sharply, which cuts directly into buying at a discount. Several people I've read say the license made them a worse buyer.

Option two is restructure and stay unlicensed. Buyer first, never advertise, principal only, and take title when the statute makes you. The cost is that you've capped your deal flow at the size of your buyer list and you're reading new legislation every session.

Option three is stop wholesaling and use the same skills somewhere adjacent. The seller finding machine works fine if you're buying and holding, or flipping yourself, and neither of those has a public marketing problem.

The guide's framing is that the strategy is being sorted rather than killed, deals consolidating with operators who treat compliance as a cost of admission. Fine, but sorted into what? I can see a licensed wholesaler doing more volume with less fear. I can also see the license turning the whole thing into a job with a worse spread. Whether a license is required for anything you're doing is a question for a lawyer in your state.

Curious where the room actually lands.