Closio at the DPD AREBI Jawa Timur Seminar in Surabaya

On June 18th, DPD AREBI Jawa Timur, the East Java branch of the Indonesian Real Estate Brokers Association (AREBI), held a seminar in Surabaya on the legal and ethical boundaries of social media content for estate agents. Closio was there as a sponsor and took the stage to present, alongside Citraland City Kedamean, Citraland The GreenLake, Citraland Northwest, and Citraland Surabaya.

Why this seminar mattered

What made the day useful was the choice of speakers. Instead of another marketing talk, AREBI brought in the Cyber Crime unit of Polda Jawa Timur and the Consumer Protection Foundation, YLPK. Both spoke to a practical problem: most agents now market properties on Instagram and TikTok every day, but few have a clear idea of what the law actually allows.

The sessions stayed concrete. What you can and cannot claim about a listing, the rules around using photos you did not take, and where promotional content starts to expose an agent to consumer protection complaints. These are questions agents run into constantly and rarely get a straight answer to.

Why Closio was there

We were there because this is close to what we do. Closio builds websites, a CRM, and an AI real estate agent for agencies in Indonesia. Selling software is part of it, but a listing platform is only as good as the practices around it. An agency that publishes accurate listings and answers clients properly gets more out of any tool than one that does not. The questions raised at the seminar are the same ones that come up when we help an agency set up its online presence, so it made sense to support the event and show up in person.

What we actually did

We presented Closio on stage and walked through how an agency can bring its whole operation into one place, in three parts: a professional website, a CRM built for real estate, and an AI agent for WhatsApp.

The more valuable part, for us, was the rest of the day. We talked with agents and agency owners about how they currently work, what slows them down, and what they would want from a digital setup. That is more informative than any survey.

Our take on it

The seminar framed this as a legal question, and it is one. But the way we see it, the law is only the visible part of the problem. The bigger cost is quieter. A buyer who feels a listing was dressed up to look like something it was not does not come back, and they tell people. Accuracy is not just compliance. It is how an agency keeps the reputation it spent years building.

That is also where good tools matter, when they are used honestly. When a listing lives in one place and syncs everywhere, the price, the status and the photos are the same on your website, your WhatsApp and your posts. You are far less likely to advertise a property that already sold or a price that changed last week. Owning your own site and using your own photos, instead of reposting whatever is circulating, is both the safer and the more professional choice. Technology does not make an agency ethical, but it makes being ethical a lot easier.

What we took away

A few things were clear by the end. Agents in East Java are actively trying to work in a more structured, more digital way, and they are asking harder questions than they were a year ago. They also want to understand the legal side, not just the tools, which is a healthy sign for the market. Events run by DPD AREBI Jawa Timur are one of the better places to have that conversation directly.

Thank you to DPD AREBI Jawa Timur for organizing it, to the speakers from Polda Jatim Cyber Crime and YLPK, and to the agents who took the time to talk with us. We would be glad to continue those conversations.