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“Coming Soon” Listings: A Blessing or a Curse?

by Chip Bell

To Newton, this new market is a double-edged sword. She admits that marketing a property prior to its listing can be great for sellers, who benefit from a better negotiating standpoint and the early buzz a “Coming Soon” sign can generate. But warns that, like any tool, it can be misused.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as local, state and national Realtor associations, set forth certain fair housing and equal opportunity rules, as well as broader ethical guidelines, that every Realtor is required to follow. Many have cited fears that “Coming Soon” listings will violate these rules, but Newton doesn’t seem worried. She says the real danger in pre-marketing a property is the absence of exposure to the broader public.

According to Newton, the problem with marketing properties without properly listing them lies in the number of people who will ultimately see the home. By limiting your audience, she says, buyers may be missing out on multiple offer situations that could result in a higher sale price.

In this way, Newton remains hesitant of traditional pre-marketing tactics, like yard signs, but supports the broader and more transparent “Coming Soon” feature on Zillow.

What Zillow Has to Say

At Zillow, leadership is largely shirking off implications that its new feature will in any way damage the industry or misleads customers. To get the website’s perspective, we talked with Zillow representative Katie Curnutte, who shared her insights on the new “Coming Soon” listings.

“The practice of pre-marketing listings is not a new thing,” Curnutte says, “We really developed this tool for customers. Considering how competitive the market currently is, this gives them a chance to see what’s coming, get pre-approved and loop in their own agent.”

In response to comparing Zillow’s “Coming Soon” listings to the much more nefarious practice of pocket listings, Curnutte says that, if anything, the company is shining a light on what could have other wise turned into a problem.

“One of the reasons Zillow established this specific framework is because agents were already posting off-market listings to the site,” she says, adding that while it was a common practice, Zillow had no means of helping customer discern between what was on the market and what was just being advertised as a future option. Curnutte says the “Coming Soon” feature eliminates that issue, making listings more transparent and their status more apparent.

To make sure agents are not taking advantage of the system, Zillow has put in place time requirements for each listing. When an agent posts a new property to Zillow’s “Coming Soon” section, Curnutte says, they are required to include an “expected listing date,” which can’t exceed 60 days from the posting date, and check an agreement that states they are complying with all real estate licensing commission, MLS and local association of Realtors’ rules, as well as their brokerage’s rules.

If an agent’s listing doesn’t go on the market within 72 hours of its expected listing date, Zillow will automatically pull the listing from syndication. Curnutte admits that while the company doesn’t actively investigate whether agents are actually complying with local, state and national rules, Zillow does retain an “audit trail” of all “Coming Soon” listings.

“Should it come to our attention that an agent is not in compliance, we’ll remove the listing and be in contact with the agent, and his or her brokerage as appropriate, to ensure the issue is resolved,” she says.

What do you think? Will “Coming Soon” listings help or hurt real estate agents? Take our poll below, and voice additional opinions in the comments section:

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Comments

  • Maria E. Greener says:

    This will require many ethics, and multiple listings rule changes and maybe some legal changes as well in the industry. Just the question being asked exposes a problem “Will Coming Soon listings help or hurt real estate agents?”. Well, if the real estate agent was the only party to consider in a real estate transaction the answer is simple: It will help listing agents and their company, but hurt other agents working with buyers. Restricting access, and the flow of information by funneling it through a very limiting source, may have all the negative impact a pocket listing has by A. during the “Coming Soon” period turning the property temporarily into an in-house listing, B. restricting equal opportunities to all buyers, C. limiting the number of offers or multiple offers to a seller. The “Coming Soon” signage should be addressed now by the real estate governing body, not later.

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