Some in the real estate industry are worried that the rise of private listings will lose sellers money and gate listings based on which agent a buyer uses. iStock photo illustration

The ink is barely dry on the National Association of Realtors’ new pocket listings policy, but already some in the industry worry that more concessions could be made to fans of the practice and that consumers could be harmed.

The change allows for so-called “delayed marketed listings” which allows for listings to not be immediately shared on an MLS. It hides a listing’s true number of days on market from the public – a key sign that a property is priced too high if they start building up.

Luxury brokerage executives, most notably Compass CEO Robert Refkin, continue to push for private listings and this policy from NAR appears to be a concession to private listing advocates.

Jonathan Miller, a noted real estate commentator and president and CEO of national appraisal firm Miller Samuel, believes that the concessions that NAR is making to the brokerages behind the new policy indicate the waning influence that the organization has in the real estate space.

“I think they’re feeling the pressure from the industry,” he said. “I don’t think we can frame it as ‘meet halfway,’ but they’re trying to loosen up some of the requirements for what you have to put on the MLS at what time. I got the impression that, because of this position, that there may be more to come.”

$20K Left on the Table

With the policy only a few weeks old, there are many questions about how big of a change this will prove to be.

“Do I think that [NAR] is going to see the need to bend further? That’s entirely possible,” said Colleen Barry, CEO of Boston-based brokerage Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty. “I do think, in all likelihood, this encourages those companies that have really been trying to do the pocket listing thing, to continue that practice. I think if we all had a magic wand, what would be the ideal circumstance? It would be one where consumers had the option, but it was made abundantly clear to them what the risks are.”

One of those risks is spelled out in a new report from Zillow. The listing portal’s economists found that homes listed privately, in the aggregate, left billions of dollars on the table. The study examined home sales from 2023 and 2024 and found that homes sold off-MLS typically sold for $4,975 less than those listed on the MLS, a median loss of 1.5 percent nationwide.

Some of the greatest losses actually happened in Massachusetts. The commonwealth was just behind New York and California with private homes selling for $20,171 less, a 3.4 percent difference compared to homes sold on one of the three primary MLSs in the state: the Cape Cod & Islands MLS, the Berkshire Multiple Listing Service – both owned by their regional Realtor associations – and the privately-owned MLS PIN, which covers the entire state.

Less Exposure, Less Money

Homes sold off-MLS trade hands for less, Miller said, in part because they get less exposure.

“The more exposure, the higher the probability of a higher price,” he said. “That’s one of the criticisms of the private listing network. I’m sure there are advantages to some, especially on the high-end property, in terms of reducing the exposure to non-interested parties. However, just basic market analysis [says] the more a property is exposed to consumers, the higher the odds of the higher price.”

Many MLSs already have policies that allow for caveats to listing to the public, said Denee Evans, CEO of industry group the Council of Multiple Listing Services.

“So there’s definitely been a lot of talk about this new status being a way to give sellers more choice, and I totally support and agree with that,” Evans said. “But in today’s world, sellers still already have choice. I’d be hard-pressed to find an MLS process that doesn’t allow for exceptions to not be put on the market. So, if this new option is really giving consumers flexibility in that space, over and above what we already had available to them, then that’s great.”

Barry noted that MLS PIN holds a similar policy even though it is not owned by a Realtor trade group.

MLS PIN declined to comment on whether it would adopt NAR’s new pocket listings rule.

Big Jump in Private Listings’ Use

The updated pocket listings rule from NAR comes as the popularity of pocket listings appears to be on the rise.

A January 2025 Harris Poll survey commissioned by Zillow found that 63 percent of those who have sold a home within the past five years say their agent recommended listing on a private listing network. Also common: sharing a listing just within an agent’s brokerage.

That’s compared to 18 percent five years ago.

Sam Minton

Barry suggested that the increase in private listings could have helped push NAR to change its policy.

“I think what’s happening right now is Clear Cooperation is now trying to account for the fact that many consumers have been encouraged to go off-market,” Barry said. “It’s sort of a bending of the overall goal, which was to make information all in one place and available to everybody.”

As more and more homes are listed privately, there is a concern that consumers will be left behind.

“We want to make sure that a diverse group of people are able to see this, that the person who ultimately would pay the highest amount for that property would see this. Ideally, there would be a way that that would happen, and frankly, that has been the MLS,” Barry said. “My hope is that it doesn’t further erode all of the gains that we’ve made. We’ve put power into the hands of the consumer but my concern is that we may see more listings going privately, sellers not realizing the full value of their homes, and buyers not getting access.”

The growing use of agents’ private networks to market properties has also raised the specter of a return to housing discrimination.

“Overall, the conversation that I’m hearing is that the best thing to do is to make sure you’re putting it on the MLS, make sure consumers understand those benefits and that we’re explaining it,” Evans said. “and we’re not doing something that’s creating essentially what I’m calling ‘the new redlining,’ when we have all these pocket [listings] and you can only get into that information by way of knowing the right agent. Then I don’t think we’re doing what’s best for the consumer.”