Private listings have become one of the most widely debated topics in real estate today, with brokerages staking out clear positions on how they should be used. But for real estate professionals across the board, the guiding principle remains the same: doing what’s best for the seller.
During RISMedia’s Real Estate’s Rocking in the New Year virtual event, industry brokers and agents shared their strategies for marketing listings in the best possible light for sellers in a panel titled, “The Private Listing Showdown: How to Guide, Educate and Do What’s Best for Every Seller.”
Moderated by John Featherston, founder and CEO of RISMedia, panelists included Dennis Cestra Jr., president, Pennsylvania Region of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services; Brenda Maher, president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England, New York & Hudson Valley Properties; Billy Nash, founder of Nash Luxury at The Keyes Company; and Stephanie Younger, CEO and team lead of The Stephanie Younger Group.
Whether for or against private listings, educating sellers on private versus open market exposure is critical to informed decision-making.
Diving into the topic at hand, Featherston wasted no time getting down to the nitty gritty, asking panelists when private or off-market listings best serve sellers—and when they don’t.
For Cestra, it all comes down to timing.
“Being able to have an exclusive listing and being able to give those people that flexibility to be able to find that house before they have to worry about their home selling, especially in a tight listing market, gives those consumers the ability to not only have peace of mind, but to be able to have a different listing and selling approach,” said Cestra, who is all for consumer choice and innovation in the real estate market.
Building on that theme, Younger agreed that there are other scenarios where a seller needs privacy because of who they are or a particular situation arises that they need privacy around.
“I think those are compelling reasons why a private listing might be the way to go, but in my opinion, I think the time limit of when a private listing is in the best interest of the seller is when the seller has had a full and complete consultation and evaluation as to what their options are and they’ve made the choice about how to market and present their home that’s best for them in their current situation,” she said.
Taking that a step further, Maher stressed the importance of using private listings strategically.
“They must be defined, and it’s really about making sure it doesn’t become a system; that it’s a strategy. We’ve lived through the days before, when it was more of the club effect and listings were withheld from all the population—and for us, it’s all about transparency,” added Maher, who noted that private listings can be beneficial in very small situations—from those involving safety, health or even privacy.
Selling real estate for nearly 10 years, Nash is a big believer in open market exposure, transparency and being as competitive as possible—while not alienating a group of buyers along the way.
“Whether it’s a $1M listing or a $20M listing, every time we meet I walk clients through how the market works—and the market works best with maximum exposure. A competitive environment will get you the best price,” explained Nash, who noted that he’s never had a client tell him to keep their property off the market and try to sell it privately.
“I want to maximize exposure at all times, and by doing that, for me, the private listing route just doesn’t work,” he added. “If they’re real sellers, and they want the market to function like it’s been functioning for forever, why try to change that?”
As far as private listings go, Younger is all for seller choice—whether that’s a private listing (exclusive listing) or a full-market listing.
And while she points to the fact that there are circumstances where a private listing is a benefit, she’s all about the seller’s ability to choose the best way to market and sell their house.
“I think that most of the listings that we take that are taking a private or exclusive path, are starting their process there with the intention of becoming a full-market listing at some point. Sellers who utilize private listings or coming-soon listings are trying to make sure that they don’t waste time waiting for their public launch,” she said. “We want people to be able to go on the market as a private listing and to be able to come on the full market down the road if in fact they don’t have a successful sale upfront.”
“In the real estate business, we never color in absolutes, we never color in black and white, so one of our core jobs is to make a market for our inventory—bring buyers to every seller that you have,” added Cestra. “I’m all for getting the maximum exposure out there, but what we’re really talking about here is automatically and systematically the whole industry just blindly putting everything into one system—and usually that’s the MLS in our local markets. And that doesn’t allow us to be as creative, to be as innovative, to create waves of momentum and urgency for a listing.”
The discussion then turned to how private versus full-market listings influence buyer competition, pricing and the ultimate outcome for sellers.
“Limiting the market exposure to just a gated group of people is not in the best interest of the seller,” said Maher. “It’s also not in the best interest of many buyers out there. The words ‘fair housing’ come to mind, and we’re all about trust and opening doors for buyers in every market, and I think we’ve built the trust over the years in our industry by opening up all the doors for everybody—and that’s through transparency, that’s through the MLS, that’s through full-market exposure.”
“I think that sometimes too with this conversation, it gets too sort of shadowed in that it’s limiting people that are able to see this,” added Cestra. “If we talk about true exclusives, what you can do with an exclusive has changed in many markets in the last year and a half. The seller has this asset, and they can be able to decide how this home is marketed best for them, so it shouldn’t be a limiting factor on exposure; it’s just creating and really structuring the right launch of the property onto the market.”
Drilling down further, Younger highlighted that the seller’s marketing decisions go hand in hand with providing buyers the options that work best for them.
“This idea that buyer competition is always something that the seller is looking for or is in the best interest of the seller is a narrative that real estate agents are speaking around,” she said. “It’s not about one way being right for everybody. This is about giving clients the choice. The same way that the seller has the choice in how they want to present and market their home, the buyer can have a choice of whether they want to try to buy a house that might be off the market or to be involved in a bidding war.”
“Choice is always important, but I think the better choice is to have maximum market exposure, and if you peel back the onion, at the end of the day, I think this is all about margins for the brokerages that are pushing private listings,” said Nash. “At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.”
Featherston closed out the conversation by asking panelists to provide a parting “pearl of wisdom” for the audience:
Dennis Cestra Jr.: “We’re in a business that centers around the ability to create—create exposure, create marketing, create a brand—and listings are our canvas. Having the freedom and functionality to be able to create the right experience for specific sellers is imperative for our success as an industry as a whole.”
Brenda Maher: “Our industry earned its trust by opening doors—and whatever strategies we support going forward, we should be very careful not to narrow the access with limited opportunity. We have to forget about why transparency came into place to begin with. It wasn’t about the agents; it was about the consumers. This was all put into place for transparency with our consumers.”
Stephanie Younger: “Go back to school and go to work on your seller consultation. Don’t do listing presentations; make this a real consultation where you’re spending a lot of time discovering what the seller really wants and needs—giving them a full and complete analysis and diagnosis of not just what you do, but what you think needs to happen, so that they’re very clear going into their process about what your service offering is, what the pros and cons of every decision will be and how you’re going to be working together.”
Billy Nash: “Just delivering for me for next year, I’m going to stay consistent on my business—and that’s delivering incredible service and maximum exposure—and in my opinion, I would never alienate a buyer pool for a firm’s agenda. At the end of the day, I’m all about maximum exposure and getting the best price possible for the client. Open market, competition, transparency is the way to go.”
