Should private home listings be allowed?
www.seattletimes.com
The debate about private postings highlights fault lines about the role of listing services, the interests of buyers versus sellers and questions of fundamental fairness.

Unlike in virtually all other areas of the country, private listings are barred by the NWMLS.

New York-based Compass has taken aim at the local prohibition, sparking a federal lawsuit and plenty of industry controversy. This spring, Seattle-area Compass agents listed a handful of private exclusive properties before the NWMLS cut off the company’s access to its data feed in April, essentially forcing Compass to relent.

Even as Compass has halted private exclusive listings here because of local rules, a small share of Seattle-area properties are already sold without full transparency. Some homeowners want to sell to a neighbor or family member without broad advertising. Wealthy people, celebrities and homeowners with security concerns sometimes sell their properties off-market. Agents working with privacy-conscious sellers may skirt the NWMLS rules or submit listings and get permission to not have the property displayed broadly.

OP Note: I don’t think this is just about listing days on the market. This is probably more about racism, since you have to sign in to see anything and I’m sure they pay for data brokers.

  • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
    222·
    2 days ago

    Some homeowners want to sell to a neighbor or family member without broad advertising

    So? Why should they need to broadly advertise it? It’s a private property transaction. It’s not like it’s government public property.

    • socsa@piefed.socialEnglish
      14·
      2 days ago

      A truly private transaction is different from what is being discussed here because it doesn’t involve an MLS listing at all. The issue is agents trying to play both sides by keeping ostensibly “public” listings inside the brokerage so they get both commissions, which is a practice explicitly banned by every real estate ethics body. Simply put, if you use MLS then you need to show the property to anyone who asks to see it. You can’t just say “we are only going to show this to a preferred client list” or instruct the sellers to disregard offers from other agencies.

      • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Right. The sentence I quoted was kind of wedged in with the reporting on what you’re stating. So it seemed like associating the two, and I didnt really see the direct private sale as something to have lumped in (to report on as something nefarious).

      • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        2 days ago

        No, dude. Redlining is about banks not lending to people in a discriminatory fashion. The first sentence in your link:

        Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities.

        I quoted a line specifically about the home owner (a person, not a bank or a coporation) having a specific buyer in mind. Not at all the same thing. Even if the owner lists it publicly, the owner still decides to whom they sell the property. Otherwise you would have property-holding companies out there suing to force the sale to them as the highest cash bidder. Forcing a public MLS listing is regulatory capture forcing buyers and sellers to pay a commission to a middle-man when there didn’t need to be one.

        HOAs can fuck off and so can you.

        • HobbitFoot English
          31·
          2 days ago

          Maybe not redlining, but there has been shown to be increased inequality by keeping the homebuying market opaque.

          • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
            71·
            2 days ago

            I don’t doubt it, and I 100% support regulations aimed at increasing wealth and ownership opportunity and equality. If Compass is shown to be discriminating against minorities, then yeah prosecute the fuck out of them. I just think forcing people to list their home even though they already have a buyer selected isn’t really going to do anything about it and just artificially raises the sale price to cover the realtor fees. Say some elderly home owner is nearing hospice or something and wants to sell the house to their grandkid who is starting a family. Why should they have to do anything other than get a mortgage approved and go sign all the deed/title paperwork for the bank and the county? Forcing it to be listed isn’t going to suddenly make that home be an option for a discriminated minority buyer, because the buyer has already been selected by the owner.