As reported June 12th, Zillow’s Chief Revenue Officer Greg Schwartz announced that now, for the first time on Zillow, home shoppers can search for and find homes that are not yet on the market, but expect to be listed for sale within 30 days called “Coming Soon”
In a strongly worded statement Jonathan Lerner Owner/Broker of Five Corners Properties with several offices in New York and Connecticut and a franchisee of national brand Real Living have sharply criticized the new “Coming Soon” feature recently introduced by Zillow.
Lerner responded that “We owe our sellers a fiduciary responsibility to share a property in best light meaning to promote their house creating the most interest and obtain the highest possible price for our sellers, unless an extreme situation dictates otherwise,
such as a celebrity or public figure client whom may seek privacy.”
Note that even Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey listed their homes on the MLS.
Placing a listing onto only one site like Zillow will clearly reduce the amount of ready able and willing buyers for a property which in turn will certainly result in a financial loss to the seller. It is no different then what is called a “pocket listing” where agents fail to list the property on their local MLS and one of which local real estate boards have continued to crack down on.
Simply put, Zillow is trying to create something outside the rules to lure buyers to their site when they know that professional Realtors can not compete to do the same as it is against the rules and regulations of their local MLS, local association of Realtors, their brokerage and their state’s licensing laws.
Not to mention pocket listings have actually hurt the housing market because all these homes with more limited exposure are making it more difficult to compare homes and prices. Lerner stated that “The idea of pocket listings is one that is not only bad for the seller, but the buyers do not benefit either…pocket listings smacks of Old Boy’s Club cronyism, or worse, a high school clique, with a few well-connected agents and their buddies hogging the prime listings and cutting out certain buyers in the process. The real estate market is already jam-packed with enough manipulations to sink a battleship, the truth is that our market and business will prosper and be a better place based on collaboration.
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