Are Pocket Listings Dead? | The Residential Specialist

NAR policy may encourage compliant pre-market and coming soon listings

By Michelle Huffman

Agents must pull listings out of their pockets. The National Association of REALTORS^® passed its Clear Cooperation policy in November, and immediately thereafter headlines declared so-called pocket listings dead. The Real Deal wrote: “NAR approves pocket listings killer.”

But the policy is more nuanced than the headlines suggest and still leaves interpretation and implementation up to the local MLSs, particularly whether or not they will allow “coming soon” or premarket listings within the structure of the MLS itself.

Here’s what the policy says:
Within one business day of marketing a property to the public, the listing broker must submit the listing to the MLS for cooperation with other MLS participants.

According to the policy, public marketing includes, but is not limited to:

Flyers displayed in windows
Yard signs
Digital marketing on public-facing websites
Brokerage website displays (including IDX and VOW)
Digital communications marketing (email blasts)
Multibrokerage listing sharing networks
Applications available to the general public

Rene Galicia, NAR’s Director of MLS Engagement, says “the policy reinforces that the distribution of listing information and cooperation among MLS participants is pro-competitive and pro-consumer,” and increases transparency and efficiency.

The rationale behind it: When an MLS-participating agent publicly markets a listing, that indicates the agent has concluded that cooperation with other MLS participants is in their client’s best interest, Galicia says.

Agents can still hold private listings that are not publicly marketed, but they may require sign-off from the sellers.

“The Clear Cooperation policy is really getting back to that original concept of the MLS. Basically, we’re here to cooperate with each other and do the best we can for our clients,” says Greg Zadel, CRS, broker/owner of Zadel Realty in Firestone, Colorado, and the Chair of the MLS Committee in 2019.

The policy took effect on Jan. 1, but MLSs have until May 1 to implement their policies, which may still evolve over time.

Adjust your marketing plans

For most CRSs and agents in general, the largest change may fall on their marketing strategy, Zadel says. With the policy in place, the way an agent builds buzz about a property may change. For example, you can’t sign a listing agreement, quickly throw a listing photo on a Facebook page and then wait a week to actually put the listing in the MLS.

Martha Gentry, CRS with REMAX Prime Properties in Pinehurst, North Carolina, will have to retool her marketing strategy. She typically asks her sellers to delay putting properties into the MLS by up to two weeks, depending on the weather and photographer’s schedule, to have the property professionally photographed, floorplan drawn and virtual tour done. She does allow agents to tour the home during this time.

“The purpose for the delay in putting the property in MLS is not to give my team members an unfair advantage or to have a ‘pocket listing’—it is to make sure that when we do put it into the system, we have all the marketing in place and the home has been inspected,” she says. “Obviously, this is very advantageous to the sellers and I have never had a seller who did not appreciate the wisdom of this approach.”

Under the current rules of her MLS, Mid Carolina Regional Association of REALTORS^®, Gentry is still allowed to delay the listing, but the marketing she does during this time—putting up a sign, placing the property on her website as “coming soon” and doing an email blast to agents—is no longer permitted.

“NAR is micromanaging details of our everyday operation that should be left to the local associations, and I am definitely not in favor of it,” she says.

‘Coming soon’ could be coming soon

When the Clear Cooperation policy passed, some news outlets also reported that it was the death knell of the coming soon listing, but from an MLS perspective, coming soon listings could actually become much more widespread.

“A lot of MLSs don’t yet have a pre-marketing status or coming soon status,” Zadel says. “So what you’ve seen is ‘coming soon’ meaning all kinds of different things. Now it’s up to the local MLSs to put those into place if they choose so that it gets everybody on the same playing field.”

In Chicago, MRED, which was influential in the creation of the Clear Cooperation policy, has a Private Listing Network, where agents may upload a property listing into the MLS so agents can see it without putting it onto the Standard Listing Network, where the public can see it online.

Other MLSs offer a coming soon listing status, where agents can hold their listing while they work toward a go-live day and build interest before it becomes active. These rules allow for a marketing plan like Gentry’s.

However, not all MLSs are offering this feature, despite rolling out new rules that correspond with NAR’s new policy. BrightMLS on the East Coast recently enacted the NAR rule without offering a coming soon option.

Because different MLSs can enact different rules as a result of this policy, Zadel is encouraging agents to participate in the process at their local level—and, in fact, thinks it’s vital they do so.