Arizona home listings may become harder to find
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
A new real estate industry policy will allow home sellers to delay sharing their listings online starting this fall.
Why it matters: Proponents say the policy gives sellers more marketing flexibility and privacy. Critics worry it will make an already tough housing market even more complicated for buyers to navigate.
Driving the news: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced the new "delayed marketing" policy last week following about a year of industry debate.
- The association said the change aims to accommodate the unique needs of some sellers.
How it works: Most for-sale homes will remain widely viewable on the databases brokers use — but some listings might not show up right away on websites like Zillow and Redfin.
- Sellers who select the new option must sign a disclosure agreeing "to waive the benefits of immediate public marketing" online, per NAR.
- During this period of exclusivity, listing agents can market the homes to private client lists or prospective buyers represented by their brokerages before the general public knows about the listing.
Zoom in: Each Multiple Listing Service (MLS) — the private databases brokerages use to share information about available properties — will decide by Sept. 30 on rules for complying with the new policy, including how long listings can be withheld from search websites.
Between the lines: Phoenix Realtors president Christy Walker told Axios that Arizona's largest MLS already has a "coming soon" option that allows agents to market homes for 30 days before formally listing them.
- She told us she's hopeful this will satisfy the new policy.
Yes, but: This is where the industry is divided, she said. There are some brokerages that want to be able to market homes privately without even notifying the marketplace that they're "coming soon."
- Robert Reffkin, CEO of U.S. mega-brokerage Compass and an advocate for private listings, told Axios the status quo hurts home values by making sellers reveal details such as price drops and time on the market.
- The brokerage says homes "pre-marketed" with a Compass agent before hitting the MLS sold for almost 3% more on average.
The other side: New Zillow research found that in 2023 and 2024, Phoenix homes sold off the MLS typically went for $4,200 less than those on the MLS.
- "The marketplace is transparent. Private listing networks are the opposite of that," Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman told us. "Brokerages [are] looking to keep listings out of the public so that you have to work with that brokerage to get access to them."
The bottom line: Walker said the impacts of the new policy won't be clear until individual MLS boards decide how to interpret it — likely in the coming weeks.