Pros & Cons of Exclusive / Private / Pocket Listings

Good afternoon Buzz Mackintosh ,

What a great entry into the September Ch allege because this is a hot topic that keeps evolving! So many proc and cons depending on who you talk to. I think this would be an excellent topic to discuss in our Zoom meeting on Tuesdays. Carol Williams a suggestion for a post to feature in your Saturday Series!

Buzz Mackintosh - what an interesting topic for discussions on Zoom with Debe Maxwell, CRS for this month's Challenge with Carol Williams.  I heard about the mergers but the articles I read don't go as deep as you did. This was all very interesting! 

Buzz, this would be an interesting discussion, and many solo brokers are up in arms in Denver.

Buzz Mackintosh , the hardest question is not whether private marketing can be lawful, but how an agent documents that limited exposure served this seller’s informed objectives. Privacy, timing, and test-market value can be legitimate, yet each comes with a measurable tradeoff in competition and price discovery. A strong file should show the options explained, the seller’s priorities, and the agreed exit to broader exposure. I hope the roundtable produces a candid discussion.

Hi Buzz,
You're right, this could be a lively discussion during one of the Zoom meetings. The business just keeps getting more complicated, and this is one more reason to be happy I'm retired. 😂

Unless my client forces me, I do not do them. I want to expose all my listings to as many folks as possible. I feel like this is how I get them the highest and best offer.

Good Saturday afternoon, Buzz. Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Hi Buzz- YES...I love your idea for a roundtable topic.  From someone not an agent, if I were selling, I'd want maximum exposure for my home. When we bought in Northern VA, I always felt as if there were listings that weren't shown that would have been in our price point and fit our other needs.  I wondered if they weren't available to her. 

Good evening Buzz Mackintosh it is a very interesting subject. I had sold a 2.5 acre parcel to a prior client who wanted to sell because of the price of new construction had gone way up. It was not listed in the MLS, but I did have a customer who was looking for land. I did mentioned the parcel to the potential buyer and the price the prior buyer/owner now wanted. We made an offer and the property sold. Happy sellers and Happy buyers. Was it a private sale? In one way, it was:)

While I can appreciate the need for privacy and security for some sellers, celebrities, high value properties or certain sellers, my belief is that pocket and private listings benefit the few at the expense of transparency and equality of the many.

Commercial Brokers have essentially operated this way for years and many still do.

With the new Buyers Broker Agreement requirement, how do pocket & private listings enter that discussion? Can I really do the best for my client when there is no information available to me but is available to others? Maybe even others within my own Brokerage. 

Will large powerhouse Brokers eliminate small boutique Brokers who subsist on pocket & private listings? Or is this a new opportunity for niche Brokers? 

The discussion is focused on the Seller options, but what is the view from a Buyer searching for an Agent?

Once NAR protected the Average and Many Brokers who yearned for a unified MLS to share data and serve clients and customers. Now it seems the industry is headed back to closed doors and secrets. 

Manhattan still does not have an MLS. While, it's also true that private listings have always had a place in Manhattan- it was largely for a limited audience and owners that wanted or needed privacy- a lot of celebs and the very wealthy. In these cases, I can entirely understand the need for a non-public listing. What I can not support is the Compass/Anywhere approach which is emphasizing the firm's commissions over clients - and at the same time with the Anywhere merger- they now represent about 80% of the sales market in Manhattan. So if you aren't part of them- other firms are blind to what's available to purchase- and that monopoly puts everyone else at risk. 

If the Compass/Anywhere fight was with Zillow or similar listing sites- I could understand- and we do have a listing feed that does part of what an MLS would do- agent to agent views that could be used if the fight was purely about pushing back on Zillow and similar sites. But it's not. Instead they chose a way that enriches Compass, while harming everyone else. 

I hang my shingle with Howard Hanna- though Manhattan real estate works so differently and I remain focused on my market rather than what corporate has rolled out in other markets. The Manhattan office is also a relatively new acquisition for Howard Hanna- less than a year old- so we still have aspects of our business that remains to be integrated.  

Buzz, this is an excellent—and incredibly timely—topic for one of our Zoom roundtables! There are definite distinctions among office exclusives, private listings, pocket listings, delayed marketing and coming soon status because those terms are often treated as though they mean exactly the same thing--and they certainly do not!

For me, the central questions must always be: Is this truly in the seller’s best interest? Does the seller fully understand what may be sacrificed by limiting exposure? And can the agent clearly demonstrate that the recommendation was made for the seller’s benefit rather than the brokerage’s?

A seller may have a legitimate reason for choosing privacy, but informed consent requires far more than obtaining a signature. Your question about proving the seller received the highest price the market would bear should generate quite a discussion! And we thought we had a terrible situation with non-disclosure in our former lawsuit?! This is an over-the-top lawsuit in the making!

Thank you for bringing us such an important roundtable topic. You know we would love for you to lead the discussion.

Great post - I love posts that polarize the comments - good job Buzz Mackintosh 

It really comes down to what an informed seller wants to do. If the strategy is legal and the seller fully understands the tradeoffs, ultimately it’s their decision.

Personally, I rarely see the advantage of keeping a listing out of the largest possible buyer pool. Your best buyer may never be exposed to the property if you limit the audience.

Our fiduciary duty is to put the seller’s interests first, and in most cases, broader exposure creates more opportunity for competition, stronger terms and the best possible outcome. If a seller knowingly chooses otherwise for privacy or another legitimate reason, that’s their call. But they should make that decision with their eyes wide open.

Buzz Mackintosh  Great subject -- I think that would make an interesting topic 

 Private (pocket listings) might be justifiable in a high-end market like Manhattan NYC,  Beverly Hills, CA or Palm Beach, FL.  But in your average suburb in your average American town, what reason can there be for not exposing the property to the entire Buyer pool?

   Especially if you have a Fiduciary/Client relationship with the Seller.  HOW can "hiding" the listing from the Public benefit your Client?  How can it possibly be in their best interest?

   I'm not going to dance around what this is probably about.  It is most likely about the Listing Office keeping "the entire" commission.   

      Are those big offices doing private listings charging less commission to the Seller than they would charge if a split was involved?  Or are they going to trot out the usual lines about "Since we are the only office, we are doing all the work, that entitles us to a larger commission than if we had another company sharing the load."

     We are in the midst of a seismic change in the world of real estate sales.  The Sitzer Burnett debacle, the impending demise of NAR (please hurry!), and the Buying Public's access to internet listings that were previously available only to Licensed Agent - all of those issues are a threat to the Commission.   The Big Companies are obviously working hard to keep their bottom line from dropping. 

Buzz, when listings are tight and a brokerage wants to protect its agents, this can get sticky. I can understand protecting a seller's privacy but not at the cost of exposure in some areas where it would generate a higher value.

The seller in a more noted city who is known would want to keep out the lookers and maximum value would not be as important as their situation warrants.

The seller in a smaller market that would benefit from maximum exposure is a different story and even though the brokerage may have ties to a larger exposure, that seller still deserves all brokerage exposure.  Buzz Mackintosh 

My neighbor has had their home listed for 8 days, on Zillow, not live on MLS. Now live on MLS and they immediately dropped the price by 5%. I suspect because they did not get any bites they pondered the price. Maybe their agent did not really explain the system, the home was saved by plenty of buyers and we are in a hot sellers market. I am going to watch this one as she has the same house model as I do.

Buzz Mackintosh my company Douglas Elliman deals with High Net Worth market and does have "whisper" listings.  It depends on which market you serve.  On market gives maximum exposure