By Gren · September 18, 2026
In Michigan, the thing that puts you on the wrong side of the license line is not a missing form. It is your deal count.
MCL 339.2501 defines a real estate broker. Most of the definition is what you would expect — selling or offering real estate for another with the intent to be paid. Then it keeps going, and picks up anyone who, "as owner or otherwise, engages in the sale of real estate as a principal vocation."
Read that phrase twice. As owner or otherwise. Being a principal, holding the contract yourself, taking title yourself — none of that gets you outside the definition if selling real estate is what you do for a living. Michigan is the rare state where the license risk scales with volume rather than with paperwork.
There is no Michigan wholesaling statute, and that cuts both ways
As of September 2026, Michigan has no enacted wholesaling law. No required disclosure. No prescribed form. No cooling-off period. No registration. Nothing to file, nothing to renew, no notice you have to put in front of a seller.
That sounds like freedom, and in the short term it is. The catch is that when a state has no wholesaling statute, it does not mean wholesaling is unregulated. It means wholesaling is regulated by the license law, and the license law was not written with you in mind. You do not get a safe harbour that says "an assignment of your own contract is not brokerage." Other states wrote one. Michigan did not.
So the whole game in Michigan is staying clearly, visibly in the role of a principal buying for its own account — and not looking like someone whose principal vocation is selling real estate.
HB 5366, and why we are not going to tell you what is in it
There is a bill. HB 5366 of 2025, titled "real estate wholesaling and mandatory disclosures." It would amend MCL 339.2501, 339.2502b, 339.2503 and 339.2512e, and add a new §2517a. It was introduced 16 December 2025, lead sponsor Rep. Jason Morgan, and referred to House Government Operations.
It has not been enacted. It is sitting in committee.
Here is the honest part. We could not obtain the bill text. The legislature's own site was blocked when we went looking, and we are not going to paraphrase a bill we have not read. So we can tell you the bill number, the sponsor, the committee, the sections it touches and the fact that it is not law. We cannot tell you what disclosure it would require, when that disclosure would be due, whether it would create a cancellation right, or what the penalties would be. Anyone telling you those details should be asked where they read them.
Treat HB 5366 as a live watch item, not a planning assumption. If it moves, the disclosure wording, the timing, any cancellation right and the effective date all need confirming from the enrolled text before you change a single contract.
What "principal vocation" actually means for your operation
Nobody has handed us a number. There is no statutory threshold, no "six deals a year and you need a license" line in Michigan. What there is, is a clause that gives a regulator room to look at a full-time, high-volume, pure-play wholesaling business and say: that is a person engaged in the sale of real estate as a principal vocation, without a licence.
The practical read:
- A person with a job who assigns two contracts a year is not making a vocation of it.
- An LLC whose entire revenue is assignment fees, running paid ads, with a pipeline and a VA team, is a harder story to tell.
- Double-closers are not automatically safer here. "As owner or otherwise" was written to reach exactly the person who says "but I took title."
If wholesaling is your business rather than your side income, the sensible answers are a broker licence, or a licensed broker inside the deal. That is not a scare tactic. It is what the clause says.
The disclosure nobody requires, which you should make anyway
Michigan does not require you to tell a seller you intend to assign for a fee. We think you should, in writing, every time.
Two reasons. First, the strongest defence against "you were acting as a broker" is a clean record that you were acting as a principal and the seller knew exactly what you were. Second, if HB 5366 or something like it ever passes, the operators who were already disclosing will change nothing.
The clause below is our drafting, not statutory wording. Michigan prescribes no form, so there is no official text to copy. We have written it to anticipate the kind of disclosure HB 5366 appears aimed at, without pretending to know that bill's language.
Model clause (our drafting, not statutory): Buyer intends to assign this Agreement or its equitable interest in the Property to a third party for a fee, or to resell the Property. Buyer is not a licensed real estate broker and does not represent Seller. Seller may wish to consult an attorney or a licensed broker.
Alongside that, the file should have an assignable purchase agreement, a written assignment that transfers contract rights only and states the fee, and marketing that offers the contract interest rather than the house.
What the usual write-ups get wrong about Michigan
Michigan is thinly covered, and the coverage that exists has errors worth naming.
"Only a licensed broker may advertise real estate in Michigan, under MCL 339.2512e." That is not what the section does. §339.2512e sets the advertising rules for licensees — broker name, supervision, format. It is a conduct rule for people who already hold a licence. It does not say unlicensed persons may not advertise. The advertising exposure for an unlicensed wholesaler comes from the broker definition in §339.2501, not from §2512e. Worth knowing, because HB 5366 would amend §2512e and might add wholesaler advertising rules to it, at which point that section starts to matter to you for real.
The miscited broker definition. At least one guide cites Michigan's broker definition as "MCL 299.1980-25." There is no such provision doing that work. The definition is MCL 339.2501. If a summary cannot get the citation right, do not trust its reading of the text.
The deal cap that may or may not exist. You will see references to an old administrative rule, R 339.22319, said to cap how many transactions an unlicensed person could do. Third-party guides say it was rescinded. We have not been able to confirm the rescission or the mechanism cited for it, so treat both the rule and its repeal as unverified. What we can say is that no current numeric deal cap appears in the statute.
Two more open items, stated plainly rather than papered over. We have not confirmed the Seller Disclosure Act's exemptions, and we have not confirmed its termination windows.
Penalties, and the double-close file
Practising without a licence is a misdemeanour under MCL 339.601: up to $500 and/or 90 days for a first offence, up to $1,000 and/or a year after that. The section also provides for injunctions and restitution — and for a wholesaler, restitution and an injunction are the parts that bite. The fine is survivable. Giving the fee back and being ordered to stop is the business.
If you take title and resell, you are a seller, and the Seller Disclosure Act (MCL 565.951 et seq.) comes into play, along with lead-paint disclosure on the resale. On timing, the statement is delivered before the buyer signs a binding agreement, with a buyer termination right if it lands late. We have seen 72 hours after hand delivery and 120 hours after mailing quoted for that window. Treat those numbers as unverified and confirm them before you rely on them.
Also keep the language clean. Calling your fee a "commission" in the file is the single cheapest way to make a regulator read your role the wrong way.
The short version
No Michigan wholesaling statute, no required disclosure, no registration, no cancellation right. One real risk: the broker definition reaches anyone selling real estate as a principal vocation, owner or not, so volume is your exposure. HB 5366 is pending and unread — watch it, do not plan around it. Disclose in writing anyway, market the contract rather than the house, and never call the fee a commission.
If your operation is big enough that "principal vocation" is a fair description, the cost of a licence stops being the expensive option. Work out what your deals actually pay first — run them through the free MAO calculator — and then decide which side of that line your business belongs on.
Cut the noise. Catch the signal.
— Gren
This is general information about Michigan law as of September 2026, not legal advice. Statutes change and facts differ. Before you rely on any of it for a specific deal, talk to a Michigan real estate attorney. Citations: MCL 339.2501; MCL 339.601; MCL 339.2512e; Michigan HB 5366 of 2025 (pending); Seller Disclosure Act, MCL 565.951 et seq.