What is a pocket listing? According to Wikipedia a pocket listing is:

A pocket listing is a real estate industry term used in United States which denotes a property where a broker holds a signed listing agreement (or contract) with the seller, whether that be an “Exclusive Right to Sell” or “Exclusive Agency” agreement or contract, but where it is never advertised nor entered into a multiple listing system (MLS) or where advertising is limited for an agreed-upon period of time.

Do pocket listings help or hurt a seller? There are two thoughts on this.

Some feel, if the seller and broker agree to have a lower commission charged by eliminating the buyers agent. Does this not help the seller?

Others think, that a pocket listing rarely benefits the seller — at least not an informed seller.

It fails to provide the full market to the seller’s disposal to receive the best possible price, meaning the largest bottom line.
Pocket listings rarely create multiple contract offers.
Pocket listings close out true competition for the property through open bidding.

My thought is this. Like it or not, we are a country built on competition. Competition creates opportunity and opportunity creates advantage. I have to wonder does a pocket listings help the seller or do they just help the broker.

What are your thoughts?

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One more note about the off-market listings. Every large brokerage firm is doing it – and it is the future of residential real estate sales, unless the DOJ stops it.

The war of private listings among residential players has largely played out through public statements by their CEOs.

Compass’ Robert Reffkin has been an outspoken critic of requirements to put homes on the MLS and Zillow, while listing services like Zillow and Redfin, and brokerages like Brown Harris Stevens and eXp Realty have touted the rules as a means of transparency.

Coldwell Banker CEO Kamini Lane has been in the latter camp, penning a number of op-eds stressing the importance of publicly marketed listings.

“Certain large real estate brokerages are pushing sellers to begin listing their properties privately, claiming that it’s advantageous to the marketing strategy — despite what the basic logic of supply and demand might tell us,” she wrote in Inman in July.

But in an email to Coldwell Banker agents sent last week, she wrote about the firm’s “exciting updates” to its Exclusive Look platform that will give agents “more flexibility in marketing properties.”

Launched in 2020, Coldwell Banker’s Exclusive Look program allowed agents to share listings as office exclusives with other agents within the local brokerage firm, or as a Sneak Peek for 24 hours before the listing his the MLS, which could be sent to all Coldwell Banker agents.
In the email, Lane said that the company’s Sneak Peek feature would be expanded to allow agents to share listings with all agents in the Anywhere Real Estate network for 24 hours before being added to the MLS.

Anywhere Real Estate is the holding company for Coldwell Banker, as well as other national brands like Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty.

Exclusive Look allows agents “to leverage the power of our network for those limited instances in which an agent and their client choose to pursue a more private marketing effort,” Lane said in a statement. “This decision should be a strategic conversation between agents and their clients, and there has always been a small segment of sellers who prefer different approaches in marketing their properties.”

https://therealdeal.com/national/2025/08/28/coldwell-banker-expands-exclusive-look-program/

Peace be with you

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