In more news surrounding the hot topic of private listings, a Washington state bill designed to severely restrict private listings has been signed into law after passing both the Senate and the House earlier this year.
The bill was proposed in the Senate back in January, with the goal of explicitly banning real estate brokers in Washington from listing to “an exclusive group of prospective buyers or real estate brokers” unless the listing is also marketed publicly. In effect, this undoes the exclusivity intended by private listings. The bill notes, however, “reasonable” exceptions for this rule if the private listing is done to protect the safety of the listed property’s owner and/or occupant.
The bill also amends the section of Washington state law governing real estate relationships; the language the bill adds explicitly defines a private listing exhibited without concurrent public marketing as an “unfair practice.”
The bill is slated to go into effect in June, and has been backed by the support of Washington Realtors®, who previously provided a statement to RISMedia:
“Our top public policy priority has consistently been to build communities that have a strong economy and attractive, affordable home choices—our North Star for our advocacy efforts is making Washington the most consumer-friendly state in which to buy and sell real property. Washington Realtors® is supporting this bill because it’s another step toward that goal.”
Washington Realtors® did not provide a comment in response to the bill passing at press time.
The bill also attracted the support of the local Northwest MLS, which has maintained a stance against private listings and is embroiled in a lawsuit with Compass over the issue. Of note, the legislation’s language does not stipulate that the required public marketing for a listing has to be on an MLS itself, and Washington Realtors® confirmed previously that brokers would still be required to follow their local MLS rules.
The passing of the bill comes on the heels of other recent private listing updates, namely Zillow’s announcement that it has formed a partnership with Keller Williams, HomeServices of America, United Real Estate, REMAX and Side to put exclusive listings on its platforms. The new program—Zillow Preview—is designed to bring premarket listings “into the open market.”
The portal also announced it is updating its listing standards in order to “simplify” restrictions on what types of properties can appear on Zillow platforms.
eXp has also announced a similar set of partnerships with Realtor.com®, Homes.com and ComeHome.com (HouseCanary’s portal in Google Search) to syndicate their “Coming Soon” listings to the three portals.
