At a time when real estate industry leaders seem to be more conflicted than ever, one idea has emerged that everyone from Дома.com к Зиллоу, к Эксп Недвижимость и Компас can agree on: pre-marketing coming soon listings. What does that mean for the MLSs and will it invite more federal scrutiny?
The resurgence of coming soon listings, which were rampant in many markets across the country prior to the Национальная Ассоциация Риэлторов (NAR) implementation of the Четкая политика сотрудничества (CCP) in May 2020, began with Compass’s announcement in late February that it had entered into a mutually exclusive agreement с Ракетные компании to display Compass coming soon listings on Красноперый.
During his firm’s Конференция по итогам 4 квартала 2025 года with investors and analysts, Compass International Holdings CEO and chairman, Robert Reffkin called his firm’s partnership a win for “seller choice” as it “provides homeowners the flexibility for how they introduce their homes to the market and does not subject homeowners to any negative insights for listings.”
In the weeks since Compass’s announcement, many in the real estate industry were left wondering how other brokerages and portals would respond. That uncertainty began diminishing last week when Говард Ханна Услуги по недвижимости debuted its own pre marketing platform HannaList. Then, earlier this week, Zillow debuted Zillow Preview, launching the pre-marketing product with Keller Williams, REMAX, Side, HomeServices of America и Объединенная недвижимость as launch partners, and Эксп Недвижимость announced non-exclusive syndication deals with Homes.com, Риэлтор.com и ComeHome.com for its coming soon listings, making it clear that offering premarketing options for coming soon listings was now a must-have for brokerages.
NAR opened the door
“When NAR adopted the Несколько вариантов листинга для продавцов (MLOS) policy it opened the door for some of these marketing strategies that have been done since the beginning of time. [Now,] technology allows us to do at a grander scale,” Jason Abrams, the head of industry and learning at Keller Williams, said. “I think the key difference here is that historically, preview listings were available only to MLS members. Once they become available on the public portals, that changes the conversation and everybody now has to ask the question: ‘Does this make sense for the seller I am representing today and do I want this to be part of my marketing strategy?’ There is no wrong answer, but not empowering our people with the tools to ask and answer that question any way they see fit, that would have been a mistake.”
The dawn of a new era: MLS loses power?
For Steve Murray, the co-founder of RealTrends Консалтинг, these announcements mark the dawn of a new era in the real estate industry.
“The ground just shook. I think it is the beginning of a new time when there will be other marketplaces and it is not going to just be the MLS anymore,” Murray said. “How long is it going to be before these large national brokerage companies or major regional brokers just feed their listings directly to these portals as opposed to through the MLS?”
Historically, Murray said he views Realtor organizations and MLSs as the primary power players in the industry, but this is changing.
“Today we are seeing a combination of two things: you suddenly have all of these very large, very powerful publicly held portals like Realtor.com owned by Новости Корпорации., Zillow, Redfin owned by Rocket and Homes.com owned by Кол-Стар Групп, and on the other side you have these influential brokerages in Compass International Holdings, eXp and REMAX. They are now getting together and are starting to break the grip of the industry that was and redesign it to fit what they want,” Murray said.
Through their actions and deals to pre-market coming soon listings, Murray said these companies are making it clear that it is only a matter of time before the MLSs lose their grip on the industry.
“With these moves, they don’t actually have to use the MLS any more or play by their rules,” Murray said. “The MLS is not going to fall over tomorrow, but the era of the MLS being the dominant marketplace for the sale of homes is coming to a close. I don’t know how long it will take, but it is coming.”
A stab at dismantling systems
It appears that leaders at Compass, Rocket and Redfin, share a similar point of view. In открытое письмо published on Wednesday, Compass, Rocket and Redfin urged MLSs to adopt policies that support pre-marketing and phased marketing distribution and to cease penalizing or punishing agents for carrying out “seller-directed marketing plans.” The companies wrote that they are “jointly committed to dismantling any system that stands in the way of that mission.”
“We can no longer stand idly by while our real estate professionals face punitive actions for following duties to their clients,” the letter stated. “Compass International Holdings and Redfin are committed to defending our agents who are unfairly disciplined or penalized by an MLS for executing a seller-directed marketing plan.”
Leo Pareja, the CEO of eXp Realty, has also expressed a desire for the MLSs to make some changes, but he isn’t after the same changes Reffkin and Varun Krishna at Rocket are after.
MLSs must adapt
Pareja told HousingWire that eXp’s announcement that it will syndicate coming soon listings to Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com is a positive for consumers as it provides sellers with a broader listing exposure and it gets coming soon listings in front of more consumers. His desire to get eXp’s listings in front of the widest audience possible is why Pareja said his company did not enter into an exclusive syndication agreement with just one portal.
“I am inviting any national portal that is willing to accept my feed on a non-exclusive basis to enter into a syndication deal because, in my opinion, the listings should be everywhere at the same time,” Pareja said.
However, Pareja argues that the only reason eXp has had to sign these deals is because not all MLSs include coming soon listings in the IDX feeds they syndicate to portals and other sites.
“If all the MLSs would just include the coming soon status listings in their IDX feeds and syndicate it to all the portals, then this would be a non-issue and none of us would have to do this,” Pareja said. “I believe that part of the MLS’s role is to make sure that they are listening to their customers. I believe in the MLS system, and I think I have been one of the loudest advocates for having a third party that is agnostic making rules. I think it is super important in order for us to have collaboration as an industry, but if something is going in a certain direction, I’d prefer all of it to exist at the MLS input level and then we wouldn’t have to figure out how to do it ourselves.”
While Keller Williams leaders have acknowledged what they feel are flaws in the MLS, Abrams said when deciding to partner with Zillow on Zillow Preview, it was important to his firm that the pre-marketing period align with local MLS rules.
“Not everybody is providing this in an MLS compliant manner,” Abrams said. “This is a challenge because if you choose to be part of an association and you choose to be part of a membership that comes with rules, it’s incumbent upon its members to follow those rules, as well for those rules to be enforced equally across all companies. That is the future we are hoping to create.”
NAR respects individual brokers’ rights
In light of the pre-marketing plan announcements from several brokerages this week, NAR wrote in an emailed statement that it “respects the rights of individual brokers to make their own business decisions and does not comment on specific brokerage practices or business models. “
“NAR does not have a national policy regarding coming soon statuses. Listing statuses are matters of local discretion, with each MLS determining the appropriate statuses for its marketplace. Brokers and agents who choose to participate in an MLS agree to comply with that MLS’s policies and rules, which are designed to benefit consumers and their marketplace,” a spokesperson for NAR wrote in an emailed statement.
“NAR values the pro-competitive and pro-consumer benefits of [the] MLS, including broad market exposure, access to available properties for sale in a marketplace, and equal access to the public. We will continue to protect and advance the rights of Americans to own real estate and to support consumers throughout the home buying and selling process.”
Consumer first brokerage practices
With brokerage leaders anticipating a rise in the popularity of pre-marketing coming soon listings, Pareja said eXp needs to stay nimble and make sure the company is providing its agents with the tools they need to best serve their clients.
“I will continue putting the consumer first. That is the lens we start with because I fundamentally believe that if we take care of the consumer and do the right thing by them, then consumers will disproportionately choose us. I think if you start with making the least amount for friction to the consumer process, then you win,” Pareja said.
“For the past couple of years it has felt like people keep adding fiction to the process. That ended up being why we wrote a buyer broker agreement that was one page and in plain English and that is now why we have entered into these deals,” he adds.
Murray agrees with the notion that if brokerages want to be competitive they will need to provide pre-marketing solutions to their agents.
“Every sizable brokerage company in the country that is not on board with one of these portals is going to be looking for a partner as soon as possible,” he said.
But as he looks ahead, Murray believes that if the big national brokerage companies, in concert with national portals like Zillow and Redfin, are going to be the ones setting their own rules moving forward, they may invite the interest of federal regulators like the Федеральная торговая комиссия (FTC) in the future.
“The federal government will see that they have smashed NAR’s hold on the industry and then the portals and brokerages will be much easier targets for federal regulators because of their power and influence, so there is no doubt that we will then see national regulation of these portals,” he warned.
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