Our MLS has been publishing the Coming Soon listings for almost two months now, and agents are using the feature.  The list above has 17 out of 59 (27%) of the new listings marked as Coming Soon – the most I’ve seen in one day.

They show up as a ‘new listing’ on the agent hotsheets on the day they are inputted onto the MLS, but the homes are not allowed to be shown until they are ‘active’.  Usually the remarks and photos are brief too, which is understandable – they aren’t ready yet.  They are coming soon.

The day the listing goes active is determined in advance, and the MLS automatically changes the status on that day.  These hot new listings that haven’t been seen yet are now full of photos, videos, and descriptive remarks, but they appear at the top of our hotsheets as a ‘Misc. Change’, which isn’t the same as being on the New list.  The only indication that these are fresh listings are the days-on-market being zero:

The strategy is still a bit murky for me.  The intent is to build anticipation among agents only, but if the photos & remarks are brief and I can’t show & sell it until some day in the future, it’s not that interesting.  But it does give agents a unique advantage to receive advance notice on new inventory before the search portals get it.

Will private websites get a hold of the Coming Soons and publish them for consumers? Yes, and it’s already happening.

Will listing agents be tempted to show their Coming Soon listing prior to it being marked an active listing?  Probably, so buyer-agents should call the listing agents every time they see a contender, which will make the listing agent wonder why they are bothering with Coming Soon when they keep getting requests to show it early.

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