Why am I seeing so many houses for sale, but not listed on Zillow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

An office exclusive is when your home is sold by an agent, but not put on the MLS. Instead, it is shopped around where your agent works, or their "Brokerage.” Another word you might hear for this is a "pocket listing."

I can't recall so many of these before. Now there are several listed this way. Why would they do this?

We live in NW DC and there’s a ton of these here. Compass is the main culprit. It proliferated in the aftermath of the NAR legal settlement. If the listing doesn’t go on the MLS, agents can still collude on fees.

We’ve had a few threads on here about “exclusive” listings. They are almost never to the advantage of the seller.

How does a pocket listing enable agents to "collude" on fees?

Because if the only agents who know it’s for sale are in your office, the buyer’s agent will also be in your office and your office will get all of the fees.

Zillow banned these, Homes.com allows them, there’s a big fight about it currently. Lots of articles if you google.

Pocket listings or private exclusives never benefit the seller.

You're wrong about pocket listings "never" benefitting the seller. Why do you think so many sellers list this way? Because they are so weak and uniformed that a realtor can persuade them? And Zillow banned them because these listings don't feed to their website so they make less money. That's the only reason Zillow gives a shit about pocket listings. Dont be naive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

An office exclusive is when your home is sold by an agent, but not put on the MLS. Instead, it is shopped around where your agent works, or their "Brokerage.” Another word you might hear for this is a "pocket listing."

I can't recall so many of these before. Now there are several listed this way. Why would they do this?

We live in NW DC and there’s a ton of these here. Compass is the main culprit. It proliferated in the aftermath of the NAR legal settlement. If the listing doesn’t go on the MLS, agents can still collude on fees.

We’ve had a few threads on here about “exclusive” listings. They are almost never to the advantage of the seller.

How does a pocket listing enable agents to "collude" on fees?

Because if the only agents who know it’s for sale are in your office, the buyer’s agent will also be in your office and your office will get all of the fees.

Zillow banned these, Homes.com allows them, there’s a big fight about it currently. Lots of articles if you google.

Pocket listings or private exclusives never benefit the seller.

A company cannot collude with itself, so this is just a silly take. It might be true that the Compass agents make more money if they are on both sides of the transaction, but that is (at most) an agency law problem, not an antitrust problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

An office exclusive is when your home is sold by an agent, but not put on the MLS. Instead, it is shopped around where your agent works, or their "Brokerage.” Another word you might hear for this is a "pocket listing."

I can't recall so many of these before. Now there are several listed this way. Why would they do this?

We live in NW DC and there’s a ton of these here. Compass is the main culprit. It proliferated in the aftermath of the NAR legal settlement. If the listing doesn’t go on the MLS, agents can still collude on fees.

We’ve had a few threads on here about “exclusive” listings. They are almost never to the advantage of the seller.

How does a pocket listing enable agents to "collude" on fees?

Because if the only agents who know it’s for sale are in your office, the buyer’s agent will also be in your office and your office will get all of the fees.

Zillow banned these, Homes.com allows them, there’s a big fight about it currently. Lots of articles if you google.

Pocket listings or private exclusives never benefit the seller.

A company cannot collude with itself, so this is just a silly take. It might be true that the Compass agents make more money if they are on both sides of the transaction, but that is (at most) an agency law problem, not an antitrust problem.

It’s a problem for the seller if their house isn’t exposed to the maximum amount of buyers.

[Anonymous]

Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

You are making the assumption that sellers are informed or knowledgeable enough about the pros and cons of pocket listings. Most people are not, and they succumb to the sleazy tactics of unscrupulous agents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

You are making the assumption that sellers are informed or knowledgeable enough about the pros and cons of pocket listings. Most people are not, and they succumb to the sleazy tactics of unscrupulous agents.

What's the benefit to the agent for listing a house as a private exclusive? You imply that the agents benefit somehow so they are pushing pocket listings to benefit themselves. How is is better for an agent to not list a home on MLS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

Because they're lazy and just want to get it done.

[Anonymous]

Zillow is an advertising company at its core and it does not prioritize accurate or up to date info. It used to be that they did not pull directly from the MLS and data was horribly delayed. Not sure if that has changed but I would never recommend anyone use Zillow as their main site.

[Anonymous]

Zillow is an advertising company at its core and it does not prioritize accurate or up to date info. It used to be that they did not pull directly from the MLS and data was horribly delayed. Not sure if that has changed but I would never recommend anyone use Zillow as their main site.

What do you suggest they use?

[Anonymous]

Zillow is an advertising company at its core and it does not prioritize accurate or up to date info. It used to be that they did not pull directly from the MLS and data was horribly delayed. Not sure if that has changed but I would never recommend anyone use Zillow as their main site.

If you are not sure, how can you make a suggestion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

Because they're lazy and just want to get it done.

They are lazy to not let their agent do stuff that's not in their interest? Nobody who really wants to sell their home is that lazy, maybe mislead, but not lazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Zillow is an advertising company at its core and it does not prioritize accurate or up to date info. It used to be that they did not pull directly from the MLS and data was horribly delayed. Not sure if that has changed but I would never recommend anyone use Zillow as their main site.

If you are not sure, how can you make a suggestion?

Because there are a ton of other sites to use, so I don't understand why anyone uses Zillow. It is all marketing I guess. Use any sites that gets their feeds directly from the MLS: realtor.com, redfin, any brokerage website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There are houses for sale in our neighborhood. They have signs in front that say something like "office exclusive". Why is this happening and what does it mean? This is a SFH neighborhood in Fairfax County just outside the beltway FWIW.

As a seller, my take is that this benefits the agents somehow. I thought the exclusive listing was the way to go but all I got were lowball offers. I rejected them all even though the agent was saying he thought we should take the first one. Yeah, right.

A friend pointed out to me that the lowball offer only meant a few thousand less for the agent but a LOT less for us/the sellers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many here say it’s not beneficial to the seller and can be even detrimental. Why do sellers agree to this then? They have many options for finding an experienced RE agent to sell their house without agreeing to this.

Because they're lazy and just want to get it done.

LOL. There's no difference in the workload for a private exclusive vs a MLS listing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
There are houses for sale in our neighborhood. They have signs in front that say something like "office exclusive". Why is this happening and what does it mean? This is a SFH neighborhood in Fairfax County just outside the beltway FWIW.

As a seller, my take is that this benefits the agents somehow. I thought the exclusive listing was the way to go but all I got were lowball offers. I rejected them all even though the agent was saying he thought we should take the first one. Yeah, right.

A friend pointed out to me that the lowball offer only meant a few thousand less for the agent but a LOT less for us/the sellers.

"this benefits the agents somehow"

How?