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Two thoughts I have on this:
1. It is letting the buyers know the listing is still for sale, just no longer listed on MLS. It's now an "off market" or "pocket listing", which are incredibly popular in the $1.5mm+ market here in Marin. I've heard up to 40% of the market is non MLS listed.
2. It is letting the buyers know the seller won't budge below their last price. Usually the "OFF MARKET" status occurs after a price reduction or two.
The reason this is odd is because so many other listings just evaporate without some active notification that it is now "OFF MARKET". Something is clearly being signaled here.
I can't decide if it annoys me or if it is potentially useful. Part of me thinks it's just clever agents trying to let the few qualified buyers there are prowling the neighborhoods that they will have to pay up if they want these houses. (No one is buying. And I mean pretty much no one. Even the troll who posts all those "looky looky at Marin, it's smoking!" threads only managed to find some meagerly priced short sales or otherwise el crapo houses).
Other times I think they're doing it so we know the house is still for sale, just not on MLS. That would be useful, because over time one could build a nice database of "pocket listings" to share with the public.
I should add that over half of the homes we've offered on have been pocket/off-market listings. Those have consistently been the best price per value. MLS listed homes are usually me-too prices. Thankfully we avoided (by luck) catching one of those knives a couple months back.
They already do that. They can remove their listing without an "OFF MARKET" notification, flag, and graphic. Most don't show "OFF MARKET", they just disappear. Then they reappear with 0 DOM a day later. These actually disappear, for the most part, and don't come back for a while (I've only seen 2 come back, and not for many weeks).
This sounds weird to me... are you saying they are creating a new category of home sales where a seller takes their house off of being for sale on the market but wants people to know they still want to sell? And what do they gain from this? They can put it back on the mls after 90 days to make it look new but still accept offers?Sounds fishy to me... like they are trying to weed out people they dont like or something.
Lisa
Hi Randy
I should add that over half of the homes we've offered on have been pocket/off-market listings. Those have consistently been the best price per value.
This statement confuses me.
You said that the pocket listings were pulled at the sellers “won’t budge price”. In my limited experience, these are usually prices that are too high – but the seller doesn’t have to move, so these pocket listings are more like a “make-me-move” price. But, in the 1.5+ m houses, it is my understanding that realtors also have pocket buyers who may not worry about paying too much if the house is “perfect” for them.
Lisa,
There may be some weeding out going on, especially in the most exclusive areas. It's more likely that it's just good, old fashioned collusion. There are really only a couple big agencies that move most of these houses, and the agents all know each other. I know my agent can get at most of the pocket listings his competitor's agency holds, and vice versa. This is just how they've done it for a long time now. One agent 3 years ago told me [paraphrased] "the only homes you'll ever see on MLS are the ones know one really wants".
Clueless
Simple. The supply of buyers willing to overpay for "perfect" homes has dried up. At t his point I know probably 15 other buyers who've, like us, been waiting for a while. Believe it or not, we're not even the longest-standing fence sitters. I just met another one last week at the Bay Club. A guy and his wife moved from MA in 2006, and they've been renting & waiting it out.
Or in other words, the only folks left capable of buying $1.5mm++ homes are those who aren't silly stupid with their money. That bears out when I look at the ForeclosureRadar NOD reports. Soooo many 2004-2006 buyers are 90 days past due now. An astounding number. Even I am surprised; I expected maybe 25% as many.
Those were the guys not worried about paying too much for perfect houses.
Randy - If we diligently follow the "Sold" homes from the newspaper - will the sold pocket listings show up too? I'm just wondering because I'm not sure our RE is privy to the pocket listings in our preferred area and I'm wondering if this may be an avenue we should pursue. If we follow all thelistings and all the "sold" homes, we should see a difference - right???
I believe so. The problem is the time delay will be 2-3 months from my experience.
To be faster, you can check MLS for "instant-escrow/firm" listings. One of the big agencies still does put many pocket listings on MLS. They just always post them after they've pre-sold the home, and they show up as in-escrow from the first moment of listing. I'm seeing a lot less of this though today. It was more common about 2 years ago.
An agent on Zillow told me this is probably the case where the Sellers aren't aware (or haven't explicitly endorsed) a pocket-listing of their property. So the agent covers their arse by listing on MLS after they've sold it. The sellers never complain because they're thrilled their home sold so fast. In fact, they probably think their agent is awesome.
around here in so cal, at least w/ the more high end homes ($1.5MM+), i've heard many instances where very nice homes in "very" nice neighborhoods at "to good to be true prices" (under-priced homes) never even get listed. the seller's agent will contact another agent (a friend, family member, investor etc.) and close the deal behind closed doors. a few months later, the home is back on market with now a big premium (just above FMV). the home sale is a slam dunk and they agents in cahoots walk away with several hundred thousand dollars.
Randy so you are saying if a home is sold that isnt listed on the mls the sales info does show up on places like zillow and can be used for comps eventually like 2-3 months later? Its not like they just get sold and disappear with no notice or mention of the sale ?
Bank owned. I would be willing to bet those realtors may eventually get burned in that practice ... and wont be able to flip a house they bought on the cheap and have to pay the mortgage. I just bet it will happen in this economy. That it simply wont sell.
Lisa
Many of the homes around here will show up in Zillow as "No Data Available". In the nicer neighborhoods, the title data is not available without a special inquiry, in person, at the courthouse. You can't pull the titles on the famous people around here, for example. I found this out when we were looking at a home that turned out to be owned by one of the producers and stage musicians of Pink Floyd. I had no idea why I couldn't get any title data until I actually got to walk through the home and saw all the platinum albums hanging on the wall of his home office/studio.
if it is flagged as "off market" isnt that like changing from "for sale" to "make me move" on zillow? i dont think it is terribly usefull
No. It's not the same. They don't raise their price when it goes "OFF MARKET". In fact, usually that status is indicated after one or more discounts of the starting price. Zillows "make me move" feature is useless: any joker can put any number they want in that text box.
The "OFF MARKET" status means the home was, up til then, listed on MLS, which means they have an agent, a contract, and almost surely have actually gone through the motions of trying to sell their home.
In California, the CAR contract has a clause that if the seller cancels the listing with their agent, that agent is still entitled to a commission for a sale if the home is then sold by any means for the next 30 days after cancellation.
This was made painfully clear to me by my reealtor that threatened me with this when I wanted to hire a different agent because I felt he wasn't doing his job.
See if this "OFF MARKET" not lasts more than 30 days.
Thanks Mikal and AIA. I have seen a couple "OFF MARKET" listings come back 30 days later. But most don't come back at all, but my realtor tells me they're still "taking offers".
It's all moot for the moment. No way in hell I'm buying anything until the current $hit$torm blows through. So many Marin folks are big money types. I'll wait and see which ones are still employed in a couple of months. May be some real deals coming up, I suspect.
Actually AIA, my point was that the field was probably NOT tied to the seller's listing being cancelled (as the OP recognized). There's a different line on the BAREIS form I referenced for "Withdrawn/Cancel (Contract Terminated)".
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I don't know how many of you get MLS listings "delivered" to you through cleanoffer.com. Likely many people's realtors have similar services. Basically it's just a MLS repackager that lets your realtor put his badge on the page, lets you set up searches, and gives your realtor reports about what you're browsing. Often your realtor can "unlock" fields normally hidden from mainstream MLS' like realtor.com, etc.
Anyway, I've noticed recently here in the SF North Bay, namely Marin, a nifty little new feature called "OFF MARKET". Here's the graphic you see:
So what happens now is that when a listing is pulled it can either quietly disappear or trigger your watch list with an "OFF MARKET" notification.
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