What is a Coming Soon Home in the Real Estate Market?
Coming Soon Homes are the New (but Different) Pocket Listings
Pocket listings are virtually extinct. The National Association of Realtors, NAR, has effectively banned the million-plus Realtors nationwide from using the tactic. NAR instituted a new policy called the “MLS clear cooperation policy,” which requires any Realtor to enter their “Pocket Listing” into the MLS within one business day of publicly advertising it (unless the seller signs a refusal of service). Entering a listing into the MLS means it is syndicated to all the other MLS members (mostly Realtors) and typically broadcast to thousands of public websites like Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com, etc.
Pocket listings are “secret or private listings” that a Realtor held onto and tried to find a buyer on their own before publishing that listing publicly in an MLS system (so home buyers and other agents couldn’t find it online). There were two significant potential problems with this practice. The first is the real estate agent potentially putting their interest before their clients in trying to “double-end” the deal or represent both the buyer and the seller by finding the buyer on their own. The second is the private sale putting the home at a disadvantage and selling for less than what it might be worth on the public real estate market. The real estate market is the home seller’s best friend. Putting the home for sale on thousands of websites through an MLS system helps ensure the property will obtain market value. In fact, I believe so much in the power of the MLS to sell a home, we always list our homes for sale on more than one MLS at a time.
What is a Coming Soon Home and How Can I Find It?
In their “pocket listing ban,” NAR did not prohibit coming soon listings in MLS systems. From the Q. and A. section on the policy:
Q. If the MLS has established a coming soon status or other pre-marketing solution that shares listing data with all MLS participants and subscribers, does that comply with the cooperation requirements of the policy? A. Yes.
Portland’s real estate market is primarily served by an MLS called RMLS, and RMLS does have a coming soon policy.
A coming soon home is a home that is viewable online in the RMLS system by all RMLS members, which means all Realtors in the area and some other industry professionals like appraisers and government housing officials, but is not viewable by the general public and cannot be found online by anyone who is not a paying member of the RMLS system.
So you cannot see coming soon homes unless you’re a paying member of a local MLS system. This sounds like the bad industry practice formerly known as pocket listings, but it is not.
Local RMLS Coming Soon Policies Are in Effect
In RMLS we are allowed to list a home as coming soon for up to 21 days before it goes live, public on the market. Other members of RMLS can see the listing as coming soon, and no one else. The coming soon information contains the projected price (it can change prior to hitting the public market). The coming soon listing also contains the projected start date on the market (subject to change). The coming soon listing may contain pictures, 3D tours, and more, but often does not and it is not required to. No one is allowed to schedule a showing for a coming soon listing, home buyers and their agents must wait until the home goes live, or active status, in RMLS.
National NAR Coming Soon Guidelines
With the NAR MLS ban on pocket listings, there are some specific guidelines about coming soon homes that listing agents and MLS providers are requested to follow. For example, pocket listings used to involve an unlisted property dealt only through the real estate agent. This listing style was somewhat underhanded, as it not only required the same agent to represent the buyer and seller, but it also involved only advertising the property to people the agent knew. This limited the buyer pool, narrowing the options for a potential seller and opening them up to potential scams. Now, all listings must be put in the MLS system within 72 business hours of publicly advertising (this is true for RMLS as well), cutting down on these “secret” listings.
Coming soon homes, on the other hand, allow people to have their homes listed before they are officially listed, giving some transparency to the selling process. Coming soon homes, as mentioned previously, have the added benefit of only being visible by MLS members. This narrows down the visibility of the home before its officially listed through an MLS service.
Coming soon homes can only be listed for 14 days according to the NAR guidelines, (it is 21 in RMLS) and once a home goes active, it cannot return to the coming soon status (this is also true for RMLS). This prevents a home from circumventing the listing rules by jumping back and forth between “active” and “coming soon” statuses.
When a home is in the coming soon category, it cannot be advertised as anything other than “coming soon,” meaning a seller or agent cannot act like the property is active. This listing is meant for when a home is in the process of being listed, not to solicit completely private offers on the home itself.
While under the coming soon status, a home cannot be shown as if it were an active listing. If an office wants to leave the home unlisted, it must be submitted as an “Office Exclusive” listing within 72 hours or three business days (also true for RMLS).
For more information on the NAR restrictions on the MLS system and the various listing types that can apply to homes, check out the information section on their website. Since there are many things to consider when it comes to listing your home as coming soon, it’s a good idea to talk over your options with a licensed real estate agent so you know what’s best for you and your property.
Coming Soon Listings Are Good for Sellers
Part of the rules for coming soon homes is no showings allowed. Coming soon means no showings; the home is not yet on the public real estate market. It allows the home to be seen as an online preview by all the local Realtors in the area so they can give their buyer a head’s up on when that property is coming to market, but they cannot show it to their buyers until it is publicly available and displayed on the thousands of real estate websites that MLS systems syndicate out to. This means coming soon homes don’t result in private, secret, or off-market home sales. Rather, the coming soon status builds up steam before going on the public market and potentially gets the home more interest when that property goes “live.”
Home Buyers Can Take Advantage of Coming Soon Homes
In Portland, Oregon’s real estate market, home buyers look for any advantage they can find. If home buyers cannot find what they’re looking for searching available online home-for-sale inventory, they can connect with a local RMLS member or a local Realtor and get access to coming soon information. They cannot tour these homes, but they can know about what is coming and schedule in advance to see these homes the day they hit the public real estate market. This is a true advantage a savvy home buyer can use. Connect with a top 1% Portland buyers agent with 20+ years local experience.
Experienced Realtors Use Coming Soon Homes to Help Buyers and Sellers
If you’re looking for top 1% sellers’ agents that utilize the coming soon status to great effect, check out our services here. If you’re a home buyer who wants to know about all available inventory, including coming soon homes, contact our top 1% buyers’ agents. We are members of multiple MLS systems throughout Oregon and Washington with access to hundreds of coming soon homes.
