Why do so many homes trade off-market in Marin County?
An off-market home for sale, also known as a pocket listing, is a home available for sale privately that never goes on the public multiple listing service (MLS). Therefor, you’ll never find the property on Zillow, Trulia or any other real estate website. In Marin County, 1-in-5 homes are trading off-market without ever going public. That’s 20% of the market you could be missing if you’re not working with a realtor who’s well connected in the area.
Why would a home seller choose to sell their home off-market?
For some home sellers, the conventional listing process might not make sense for a variety of reasons, including:
Privacy. Sellers most frequently list their houses off-market because they desire privacy — they don’t want their sale to become public knowledge. Sometimes the owner is selling as the result of a life event they don’t want to publicize, such as a divorce or financial hardship. Occasionally, the seller wants to avoid an endless stream of foot traffic from strangers — or nosy neighbors — shuffling through their home.
Occupied homes. In today’s market, a home will receive the best reaction from buyers if it’s vacant, prepped and staged. If the seller needs to sell their home before moving and doesn’t have the ability to vacate before the sale, selling off-market could be a better path to still getting their desired sales price. In other cases, some sellers need to remain in the home for months after the close, known as a “rent back” period. Finding a buyer who can accommodate these needs is less risky to sellers off-market while still awarding them with their sales price.
Avoid “Days on Market”. By selling off-market, sellers don’t have no worry about the property going stale or having it sit while people wonder what’s wrong with it. This works best for very high-end homes that take longer to sell even in a fast-paced market. Sellers can benefit from setting their desired price and have their agents network to an exclusive network of qualified buyers versus accumulating days on market.
Price Testing. Sellers can test a desired price and get local market reactions to the house. If they don’t sell the home off-market at a their premium they can lower the price before putting it on the MLS, if it’s priced too high, and avoid a public price reduction.
Rental Properties. If the seller owns a rental property and doesn’t want their tenants to know the house is for sale, selling the home off-market can provide the seller with the privacy they need to sell the home while not disturbing tenants.
Coming Soon. Other sellers plan to list their homes on the MLS eventually, but they want to advertise the house and generate buyer interest before it officially hits the market. You may see these properties advertised as “Coming Soon” listings on the MLS and home-browsing websites. If buyers agents are on top of their game, they can often times get buyers into these homes and writing preemptive offers before the competition.
The pros and cons of selling off-market
Off-market sales have their benefits as well as drawbacks. Because the home isn’t marketed to the public through an MLS, the advantages include:
Maintaining control, confidentiality, and privacy over your property. This discretion can appeal to high-end sellers as well as those with financial difficulties, or people in the midst of sensitive personal matters such as a divorce or illness.
Avoiding the logistics and expenses of home prep, staging, showings, and public open houses, which reduces the amount of traffic in your home as well as the stress of coordination.
Facilitating the sale faster. Some sellers opt for an off-market sale when the purchase of a new house is contingent on the sale of a previous house, or when they find their dream home and need to sell quickly.
There are some potential disadvantages, however, such as:
Less publicity for your property. By not listing your home on the market, your home has less exposure to potential buyers. However, through Own Marin’s network and exclusive e-mail databases of top agents around the Bay area we are still able to successfully reach a wide local network of qualified buyers who are likely to buy your home.
The unknown potential in selling price. Because of the limited number of potential buyers off-market, there’s less chance of a bidding war and the unknown possibility that buyers could have taken your final sales price higher than the comps suggest. It’s important to work with seasoned agents who know how to price your home at a premium for off-market transactions so that you’re not leaving money on the table.
Finding the right agent who can advocate for you. An agent who isn’t experienced with off-market listings won’t be as proactive or have the the resources, or the initiative to present your home as an opportunity and generate multiple offers for you. Evaluate their experience by asking: Do you have a buyer pool or an investor pool that you’re currently working with? How many people in your database are buyers actively looking for properties?
If you’re unsure about whether selling your home off-market is right for you but still on the fence about a traditional sale, let’s discuss if selling your home off-market is the right approach to ultimately achieve your real estate goals.
I’m a buyer, how do I get access to off-market homes?
Get on the list below! Team Own Marin sells the most number of off-market properties than any other agent or team in the county. Our clients get exclusive access to our off-market inventory, all you have to do is work with an agent on our team, tell us what you’re looking for in a home, and we’ll do the rest.
RECENT OFF-MARKET SALES
