Blog Post: Pet Peeves and 'Pocket Listings'

Right now we have a shortage of homes for sale in the Conejo Valley. This is great for sellers (as long as their home has been priced right). Of course, how you market your home is one of the most important parts of selling it at the best price. If you are planning on listing your home soon please consider having your home on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) instead of just having your agent keeps it as a “pocket listing” (pocket listing: a term used often when the house has not been listed on the MLS, but is only being marketed by the agent, or just the agent’s office (it is being held “in their pocket” so to speak).    

Another problem often seen in our affluent area seems to be the tendency to not want to have a keysafe/lock-box on your home, leaving the entire fate of your home selling in the hands of your listing agent. I feel if you choose to do this, you are really doing yourself a huge disservice.

I realize that sometime seller’s might be very private or have a personal need to keep the house "appointment only" (such as a celebrity not wanting everyone to go through their home or a seller with a new baby), or maybe they feel that their expensive home warrants only “shown by appointment” status because that is what people in their neighborhood "do". 

If your home is only showed by appointment by your listing agent or just their listing office, well let’s just think about that for a moment. So Mr. Seller has an expensive home with a lot of expensive belongings. He lists his house with a real estate agent, but chooses to keep it just with the agent (or just with the agent’s office) and not put it on the MLS.  Now, at this point the only people who know about this listing are Mr. Seller, the listing agent, possibly the listing agent’s office, and anyone they might market it to.

How many other people know about it? If there is a sign, maybe a few drive-by's. If the agent hold an open house, a few may see it that way. Not much exposure in our present market that has so many buyer's looking that we have little inventory left to sell. 

By the way, don't forget that Mr. Seller is paying a commission to the listing agent, and if the listing agent also sells the house, then the listing agent gets paid for that as well.

So, if it sells this way, through the "Pocket Listing" did they really get the best possible price? What if it had been on the MLS and they ended up being multiple offers, and the price ended up being much higher with better terms?

Now lets say the home doesn't sell, the house sits for awhile, maybe the other agents in the listing office tour it the first week, it gets shown once or twice without any success, and then possibly after a period of time the listing agent suggests that it be put on the MLS.

Mr. Seller, by either personal choice or possibly by suggestion, agrees to now have his house on the MLS but by “appointment only with agent.” Now the house is listed on the MLS and other agents, when they are searching for homes on the MLS, can see the written listing. But to get into it they first have to call the listing agent and set up an appointment for a time that is convenient for the listing agent to open the house so that they can show it to a potential buyer.

See the problem developing? 

If you make your home hard to see, you will have less traffic through it, less potential buyers, and your home will be far likely not to sell at the price you want, if at all.

To add to this, another problem you will find is that experienced agents often like to be able to preview a home on the market if they have a client looking in a particular price range. It saves their buying client time if the home doesn’t suit their needs and gives the agent a chance to get to know the property a little better before they show it. 

I have yet to see an “appointment only” house that I can go and easily preview.  It appears that many agents don’t want to use up their own time letting another agent preview their listing, so instead we take our clients to the house without ever seeing it ourselves first. In my opinion, the only person this truly may be helping is the listing agent. They have access to show the house basically all of the time. For the selling agent, a pocket listing, if sold, will garner the selling agent both sides of the commission, effectively doubling his/her commission (100%).

This is supposed to be about you, the seller, right? Possibly it might really be benefitting someone else.

Less exposure for the seller=less ability to sell their home.

In this wonderful age of technology keysafe/lock-boxes in our area have become very sophisticated. They are designed to keep information in them that the listing agent has access to constantly-what agent has been there and when they showed or viewed the property. So Mr. Seller can have his agent tell him how many times the property has been shown, when, and even what agent showed the property.

There are many buyers looking right now with great agents helping them, and they will want to see your home if they are able to find it and it is accessible.  Consider these things when you list it. Not letting your home reach the open market might cost you more than just time, it might cost you quite a bit of money.

Pamela Blankenship
Century 21 Adobe Realty
81-879-1888 cell
818-874-1234 home office
Pambi@Century21.com
www.PamelaBlankenship.com