Each Friday, Russ Anderson, the president and CEO of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty and the president of Pacific Sotheby's International Realty writes about luxury, trends, business and more in the advertising pages of the Mansion section of The Wall Street Journal. Below is his letter of January 24, 2025.
FROM THE PRESIDENT'S P.O.V.
Would you knowingly leave money on the table?
Many home sellers already are — because some brokerages are increasingly urging their agents to talk their sellers into off-market listings. These “private exclusives,” also called hip-pocket listings, are not displayed on an area’s multiple listing service and therefore not discoverable by agents using that MLS. Since these properties are known only to agents within the brokerage that has the listing, the buyer is almost always a client of another agent at that same brokerage. The listing brokerage, then, gets all the commission.
But what else does a private listing do? It limits the exposure of a property, which limits the pool of potential buyers — which limits a property’s sale price. It’s a bizarre tactic, this push for private listings. Why? From a broadly published survey of more than a million homes sold between 2019 and 2023 in just two regions of the U.S., homes listed on the MLS sold for 17.5 percent more than off-market listings.
Yes, you could be shorting yourself by almost 20 percent if your home is never on the MLS.
We, of course, can sell a home off the market, for privacy reasons. And our own agents regularly represent the buyers of properties listed by our own agents. That’s organic and happens at every brokerage. But so proactively limiting the exposure of a property by keeping it off the MLS is not in the best interest of virtually any seller.
Think about it: If you owned a valuable painting, and your art dealer told you their friend could buy it directly from you instead of it being offered for open auction, wouldn’t you be suspicious of whose interests were being served?
Russ Anderson
President and CEO, Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty
President, Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty
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