Another attempt to corral the off-market pocket listings into a profitable venture – this by grouping the top producers together into their own MLS Club:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-10/pssst-wanna-sell-your-house-can-you-keep-a-secret-.html
An excerpt:
Wall Street traders aren’t the only ones who like to circumvent the conventional marketplace. Real estate agents are increasingly pitching sellers on their version of secretive dark pool trading: Skip the multiple listing service (MLS) and let the agent market the home privately.
Privately can mean everything from an agent bringing in a buyer and collecting the entire commission (typically 6 percent) rather than splitting it with a buyer’s agent. Or it can mean posting a Coming Soon sign on a property before listing it on the MLS. Then there’s the growing number of private agent clubs, closed networks of agents who deal among themselves, often using “pocket listings,” or homes they have yet to — and may never — post to the MLS.
No national data exist on the percentage of residential transactions happening off the MLS. Two small surveys that looked at transactions in a few counties — one focused on California, one multi-state — put it at more than 20 percent of sales. Steve Murray, president of RealTrends, a real estate consulting and data company, says he sees more private agent networks popping up, and expects them to become a bigger presence.
“Twenty percent of agents do 80 percent of the business, so why wouldn’t the big agents want to work just amongst themselves?” he asks.
That’s the pitch for Top Agent Network, which accepts only agents who are among their region’s top 10 percent in revenue generation. It runs 30 chapters of private agent-to-agent online communities in seven states, including California, Massachusetts and Illinois.
Members are part of a closed email loop and have access to online listings and a database on which only they can post and search. Founder David Faudman says he has 4,300 members and expects steep growth as the trend grows. He says the networks are a complement to the wider net of the MLS.
“You can bet your boots that in this market where a listing is as good as cash, some agents are looking to use that as a way to double their income,” says Murray.
Read the full story here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-10/pssst-wanna-sell-your-house-can-you-keep-a-secret-.html
JtR: I love how real estate agents will eat their own young just to pocket that precious 2% buyer’s commission. It really shows the true colors of the real estate industry when this select group of “top 20% producers” are not willing to act in their seller’s fiduciary interest by placing the property into the open market for true price discovery. The present real estate mafia cannot die soon enough, in my opinion.
Why would those sellers let these pocket-listing agents bully them into limiting the chance to fetch the highest price in an open market is beyond me. Unless of course they don’t know better.
Or just don’t know.
How about the agent who inputs a new listing on Tuesday night, but notes in the confidential remarks that there are no showings on Wednesdays. It populates through the internet in minutes, and buyers who call their own agent are told that they have to wait until Thursday. Those who call the listing agent direct – what are they told?
It’s already pending of course.
Did the agent do it deliberately just to skim the first buyers off the web and get them in first? The sellers probably expected showings right away, so if an offer was presented on Wednesday night they probably wouldn’t mind. Or did the agent hold everybody until Thursday?
Sellers can’t see the confidential remarks unless they request a copy from an agent.
Most transparent market ever.
Funny thing about transparency – it ain’t coming to you.
You have to pursue the truth.