If you’re buying or selling a home, you’ll likely hear the term “pocket listing.” What exactly is a pocket listing? A pocket listing is a property that is for sale, but has not hit the public facing market yet, meaning you will not find it on sites like the MLS, Realtor.com, Redfin, Zillow, or any other home searching database. Rather than making the property available online to the general public, Realtors keep it in their “pocket” and only share it with other top Realtors who share it with their buyers. Typically, sellers do this because the property isn’t quite ready to be shown to the general public yet. Usually, the sellers are still doing some repairs, touching up the paint, decluttering, etc. to get it ready to go on the public market and aren’t ready for showings yet, but are ok with a few serious buyers seeing their home.
What do we not like about pocket listings as a buyer's Realtor?
- Less room for negotiation – because the property has not hit the open market yet, sellers are usually not willing to negotiate much, if at all, on the price. Because of this, expect to pay full price for most pocket listings
- Often times the properties are not show ready so you will have to overlook clutter, moving boxes, the paint not being perfect, etc. as the sellers are still in the process of getting the property market ready
- With pocket listings you may not know about all of the properties for sale as you would with properties listed on public facing websites
What do we not like about pocket listings as a seller's Realtor?
- By not advertising the property to the general public, sellers are reducing their chance of selling their property for more than the asking price in multiple offers. Typically the more eyeballs you can get on a property the higher the chance you'll get multiple offers and sell it for more money.
- Pocket listings can be harder to sell overall because less buyers are seeing the property online, which is a buyer's number 1 tool for finding homes for sale.
- Choosing to sell a home as a pocket listing with the goal of screening legitimate buyers can have significant consequences as screening buyers is a violation of both local and federal Fair Housing Laws and could be interpreted as discriminatory.
- When pocket listings are sold off market it can make it difficult for buyers, realtors, and appraisers to have a full picture of sales prices in an area since not all of the comps are showing up in the MLS, which is how realtors and appraisers value homes. This price information can be very helpful for consumers looking to refinance or compare home appraisals and can present buyers and real estate professionals with an inaccurate view of the market.
- We encourage our sellers to go straight to the MLS to list their home for sale to maximize buyers knowing about and having a chance to bid on a home to achieve the highest sales price possible
Have any additional questions on what a pocket listing is? Reach out to us at shay@shayhata.com or 312.600.7510.
