Red Pear Felipe said:

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Most buyers today are searching online. In fact, according to NAR (2024), 51% of buyers found the home they purchased online.

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This seems way low, I'd guess it would be in the 80%. I can't imagine looking for a home without getting online.

Also, I thought "pocket listings" were done away with?

The homes search engines won't allow them, but you can still add it to the MLS as a flex listing as seen above. Zillow.com, Redfin, etc will only update it on their end once it reaches active status on the MLS.

There's probably some bias on this board with competencies for finding their own homes. A lot of people still don't want to have any part of the search, but instead want to find a realtor who will drive them around to see homes and do everything for them (tell them what to offer without providing comps, go to inspections without their client, etc).

Unfortunately, no, they didn't do away with pocket listings. They just rebranded them and figured out a way to keep doing it without the greater public's knowledge.

I've yet to hear a coherent argument supporting these types of listings.

They're great for Compass...bad for seller.

Reffkin loves to tout them as all about "consumer choice", but it's really about them using market power and double-siding the commissions

I've talked with Diggity before about it and agree they make very little sense from a seller's standpoint aside from the illusion of exclusivity and "less hassle".

That being said, just searching in the Fort Worth market I can tell you we were absolutely stunned by how many homes were being sold off-market. Amazing properties that we otherwise would have had no idea were even available.

I think they make sense if you're just wanting to "kick the tires" and aren't in a huge rush to sell, and just seeing if there's any interest. They can also be good to keep every Tom, Dick, and Harry from coming onto your property with zero intention of buying.

yeah, they've got the rich folks convinced it's some bespoke service that keeps the riff-raff out.

I'm amazed that HUD hasn't gone after the practice for steering.

I'm not sure how you "kick the tires" to find out what your home could fetch by opening it up to a fraction of the buyer pool.

If you're worried about too many people wanting to see your home (not a bad problem in my mind) then you can always list on the MLS and limit showings to hosted open houses. That way you still get the property marketed to the entire buyer pool and don't have to mess with constant showings.

As Prop Joe mentioned, in nice neighborhoods in Ft. Worth, a good portion of the homes trade off market. I see the same in the Spring Branch area. Great for the brokers that work that area, bad for the sellers.

But then again… who's actually seeing your flex listing?

I get the idea of testing the market and seeing if there's interest, but if no one can really see it, what are you actually testing?

That's really the whole point, your average buyer is searching online. If it's not there, it's not getting seen.

At that point, it's not really "exclusive"… it's just hidden.

I'm guessing also a bit of testing the waters without having to officially set a MLS price? You can go high "off-market" and if you don't get it, when it hits MLS there's no history of you having to lower your price?

That protection still doesn't seem to match the potential upside of a bidding war, but I think a lot of home owners with 7 figure houses don't get too caught up in whether or not they get $1.5 instead of $1.6, but rather if it sells in 3 days vs 3 weeks.

I don't have a ton of experience with these pocket listings, but did help a friend buy one. We only found out about it through school connection.

I can pretty confidently say the seller's left 200K on the table, but they didn't seem to care.

If that's their prerogative, so be it. I just think groups like Compass aren't leading with "you'll likely get 5-10% less" but at least you won't have unwashed masses looking through your drawers".

interesting timing...just saw this lawsuit against Compass on Innman

Quote:

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In the filing, the broker-owned MLS alleges Compass' Three-Phased Marketing strategy, or 3PM, violates Washington's Consumer Protection Act and relies on misleading and exclusionary practices that benefit the brokerage at the expense of buyers, sellers and competing brokers.

'Orwellian-named' strategy under scrutiny
NWMLS uses particularly sharp language to characterize the strategy, calling it an "Orwellian-named" approach that presents itself as consumer-friendly while steering deals toward Compass agents and limiting broader market access.

At the center of the dispute is Compass' phased rollout of listings, which begins with a "private exclusive" period limited to Compass agents and clients, followed by a "coming soon" phase on Compass' own platform, before listings eventually hit the MLS. NWMLS argues that, despite being labeled "pre-marketing," those homes are effectively for sale just not to the broader public.

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Quote:

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As for who benefits from the phased marketing strategy, NWMLS points directly to Compass.
"Such exclusionary marketing hurts sellers, buyers, and other brokers, and only benefits Compass and its brokers by allowing them a greater opportunity to participate on both sides of the sale," the filing reads.

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NWMLS blasts Compass' 'Orwellian' listing strategy in new legal filing (paywall)

Let's be honest, this is what yall are really worried about.

"Such exclusionary marketing hurts sellers, buyers, and other brokers, and only benefits Compass and its brokers by allowing them a greater opportunity to participate on both sides of the sale," the filing reads




We just sold off market and it was a great experience. Listed roughly $100k more than we anticipated getting just to see and sure enough we accepted an offer just under full with the lease back we wanted in three days. Because of the off market we dint have to worry about listing, days on market, price drops, multiple weekends of showings and we walked away with 100k more than we were going to list with. Absolute home run for us. I'm sure it doesn't always work this way but it was great.

In the end brokers want to make money. Y'all care about yourself and as you should. I'm just glad there are other options that help people like me.

I do a deal or two a year at this point so none of this matters to me financially.

I'm glad you were happy with your transaction but you clearly had a desirable property so none of those hassles you were worried about would likely have come into play.

Moving to a market where every broker has a silo of listings that aren't available to a wider audience is bad for (nearly) everyone.

Compass knows that they can outspend most everyone else and is using that market power.

If this thread was really about educating the masses then it would have listed the pros along with the cons. There are several giant pros to these listings that were completely left out....for some reason.

a.) Listing much higher without days on market or price reduction record that Realtor/Zillow show.
b.) There is no history of sale for property taxes. Texas is a non disclosure state.....except for every realtor who is on MLS including county appraisal districts.
c.) Privacy

Of course the drawback is less exposure and all the downfalls that come with that, which were well explained in this thread.

A. Realtors can see the price history regardless of what the status was, so this is wrong.

B. If the CAD wants your sales price, they will get it. So this is erroneous as well.

C. If you want privacy, why are you listing your home for sale on the internet at all? Strike three.

Regarding B, I struggle to see why a seller cares so much about the sales price being disclosed.

A buyer could argue that's a good thing, but why would a seller care?

Bigger picture, an MLS without sales comps is pretty useless. You go back to the old days where the largest brokers have a huge data advantage. This is what Compass wants.

Red Pear Realty said:

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A. Realtors can see the price history regardless of what the status was, so this is wrong. How can a realtor see what the price of an off market house was?

B. If the CAD wants your sales price, they will get it. So this is erroneous as well. How?

C. If you want privacy, why are you listing your home for sale on the internet at all? Strike three. Privacy for the final sales price, date and whatever else MLS discloses to the masses.

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Respectfully, you are not educated enough to participate in the conversation, so I'm not going to continue it with you.

I was mainly arguing for the buyers prospective. I have several properties where the appraised value (not taxable value) magically raised significantly to the selling price by Tarrant County after I purchased. I would love to buy off market to avoid this.

As for the seller, I'm sure there are a number of things surrounding divorces, family etc. etc.


If you're tying to convince me that on market is better than off market then you'll have no argument from me, but I literally just went through this process with an off market home and it really benefited me(this time). On market is always better, but there are several big pros to off market. And it's clear the biggest con to off market is cutting out other brokers, from that article and this thread.

The biggest con in my view is cutting the listings off from a wider buyer pool. That's a big deal and I think it outweighs the nebulous pros I've seen articulated. Just my opinion of course.

If you're in a hot area, you'll get the house sold regardless but how do you know you're getting the best price without going to a wider market?

As you mentioned, that's up to the seller and may be fine with them. I just disagree with the way Compass frames the service.

I think you're viewing the quick sale only in positive light of the off-market and not necessarily what it also represented from the alternative view -- that you potentially underpriced your home and would have had multiple offers well above that had it had more exposure via MLS.

To some sellers that added hassle/exposure/time isn't worth just the possibility of another $100k in a bidding war, but it definitely creates a ceiling.

Appraisal definitely is an upside to off-market. You aren't hiding your true market value forever, but if you can get just that initial appraisal low and homestead, over 10 years that can save you a ton of money.

Totally agree there is the positive aspect of not having a reported sale. I'm just viewing things from a seller lens here, since they make the decision on how to list.

I think the Dallas MLS allows undisclosed sales prices (or they used to). As mentioned, taken to the logical extreme, that destroys much of the value of the MLS for all users.

Who wouldn't want an extra $100k in a bidding war? Are average sellers that rich where they can honestly say "I don't need an extra $100k."? I recently helped a client buy a home in Lakeway,TX. He really wanted the home and was in a small bidding war where he was okay getting it over asking price. I honestly don't think the seller of this house was thinking, "I don't need another $100k…it's okay. "

Red Pear Felipe said:

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Who wouldn't want an extra $100k in a bidding war? Are average sellers that rich where they can honestly say "I don't need an extra $100k."? I recently helped a client buy a home in Lakeway,TX. He really wanted the home and was in a small bidding war where he was okay getting it over asking price. I honestly don't think the seller of this house was thinking, "I don't need another $100k…it's okay. "

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I don't run in those circles so I couldn't tell ya - like I said I think it's what you guys have been saying and that the realty companies are convincing these sellers the "exclusivity" is worth it.

But it's happening quite a bit. One of the houses we looked at had changed hands twice without ever seeing MLS.

Red Pear Realty said:

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Respectfully, you are not educated enough to participate in the conversation, so I'm not going to continue it with you.

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You're better than that.

Proposition Joe said:

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Red Pear Felipe said:

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Who wouldn't want an extra $100k in a bidding war? Are average sellers that rich where they can honestly say "I don't need an extra $100k."? I recently helped a client buy a home in Lakeway,TX. He really wanted the home and was in a small bidding war where he was okay getting it over asking price. I honestly don't think the seller of this house was thinking, "I don't need another $100k…it's okay. "

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I don't run in those circles so I couldn't tell ya - like I said I think it's what you guys have been saying and that the realty companies are convincing these sellers the "exclusivity" is worth it.

But it's happening quite a bit. One of the houses we looked at had changed hands twice without ever seeing MLS.

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Let me explain what we just went through.

We were not sold on exclusivity but I'm sure it is a selling point to others. We already own the home we're moving to and we needed 6 months to remodel.

We sat down with our realtor and explained the price we wanted for the house. He said it was low and that he wanted to push for a higher price at listing. He gives us a price we should list for. I think it's too high but he's a pro in this area.

We were going to hold off until April but he says why don't we go
Off market while you're away on Spring Break? I never heard this before but he says we can throw out a high ball number and see if anyone bites. He wants to list for $100k more off the market. I thought it was silly but we're not home so why not.

A day before he puts it in his network I had cold feet and said I don't want to list that high. We're good with his original "mls listing" price and we should just start there. He was adamant that the whole benefit of listing off market is to shoot high. So relented.

He got 5 showings while we were gone. We got one offer and it was just below the inflated "off market" price. And we got the lease back we wanted. Buyers agreed to pay offer price regardless of appraisal because we knew it wouldn't appraise and sure enough it came in well under. We close on the 17th. (The buyers agent wasn't compass).

So our selling point on off market was more money. Could we have gotten the same or more on MLS? I guess but I doubt it because I would have never listed that high when days on market and price reductions start showing. Not to mention this isn't exactly a bidding war market.

That is my actual real life experience that I feel really benefited us. I'll let the realtors on this board explain why it doesn't benefit them.

There it is. You admit that you probably got taken advantage of, left money on the table, and are trying to justify your choice to do so. If you're happy, great.

I think it's a stretch to say he necessarily got "taken advantage of".

If you're underpriced, listing off-market can exacerbate a problem as you don't immediately have the market telling you so.

If you're overpriced, listing on MLS can exacerbate a problem as you'll signal to potential buyers that they can maybe wait out future price decreases or come in low.

Even on MLS, the market isn't truly efficient on the upside.

Any house on MLS that sells within a few days, it means you likely underpriced. I can't tell you how many houses we saw that we gave interest yet had no "deadline" for final offers and sold soon thereafter. Or houses in which everyone is submitting blind with no chance to counter. Just from our experience alone there's two houses where we would have gone $100k more than what it sold for if given the opportunity.

I don't know the industry so maybe there's overwhelming data that shows "final offer" deadlines and opening offers up to counter-offers actually decreases final price -- but I kinda doubt the real estate market is just isolated from these basic sales/market factors... so reality is most MLS listings aren't maximizing sale price either - they are absolutely a function of sellers wanting a quick sale and taking the "bird in hand".

Red Pear Realty said:

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There it is. You admit that you probably got taken advantage of, left money on the table, and are trying to justify your choice to do so. If you're happy, great.

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I felt I thoroughly explained the opposite but I digress. MLS brings the masses and is a great option for the majority of listings. Off market worked very well for me.

Are these the same listings that only show on Zillow if you are signed in? I'm seeing a lot of those. A new listing that has very low views. If I sign out of my Zillow account it will disappear. Is this the same thing?