Over the last few years, pocket listing has become one of the best ways to quietly market your home. If you are not familiar with this real estate term, you will come to know about it. All homebuyers and sellers should know few important things about pocket listings.
A pocket listing is an unofficial, off market listing, also known as a “quiet” or “off-market” listing. This is a type of property an agent will keep tucked away in his or her pocket. Although the seller has a signed listing agreement with the real estate agents, the property for sale is not officially listed in the Multiple Listing Service(MLS).
Many years ago, Pocket listing was mainly started for high profile people who are looking for expensive homes and its marketing is done quietly. The properties included in the pocket listing were treated exclusively because they were listed under the radar of mainstream agents, buyers and even the press.
As the real estate market is becoming more challenging, Pocket listing is becoming very popular these days. In many markets, there are a handful of low inventories and good properties, coupled with buyers who are motivated to see more homes. This might be a perfect reason to push the homes into the market. Sellers, on the other hand, want to sell off their properties, but they are not feeling happy with the current home values. These sellers will keep themselves away from the market and will sell the property only when they get the desirable price.
Once a home is listed in the Multiple Listing Services, the infamous days on market clock starts clicking. If your home is not getting business in the market, it is become staler and hence it starts losing its value. If a buyer notices a home that is on sale for 60 days or more, he will inevitably start with small offers. The seller on the other hand, who wants a certain price for the home, and is not going to the market, will engage his real estate agent to put the property under “pocket listing”.
A pocket listing will allow the seller and the agent to quietly test the market without adding it to the MLS. They put a certain value of the property to see the reaction of the buyers and the traffic it’s getting, without the MLS clock listing. The agent will use various marketing strategies except the MLS, to get the word out about the home. Sometimes the pocket listing will be recorded in the MLS, but in other cases, they are sold without ever making it into the database.
If you are a seller, you should try pocket listing, just for a week or two, and see how it goes. You have nothing to lose. If you are a buyer, you should work with the local agents because he has long term relationships with other agents in the community. This way, you will come to know about all potential homes for sale.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2018 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.