Debra Kamin at The New York Times writes that the popularity of pocket listings have skyrocketed during the pandemic…(New York Times)
What are pocket listings? It is the practice of brokers selling a home through private networks rather than on the open market.
- Pocket listening’s occupy a legal gray space according to Andrew M. Lieb, an attorney and the founder of the Lieb School. “It could be argued that they violate the Fair Housing Act,” Mr. Lieb told the New York Times, because they could contribute to disparate impact discrimination.
How popular are they? Sharelle Rosado, a broker in Tampa, told the New York Times that the use of pocket listings at her brokerage have “increased 40 percent since the start of the pandemic”
- A Redfin analysis put the increase at 67%, and in some markets, it’s believed “that as many as 20 percent of all listings are now available only to buyers with the connections to hear about them in the first place.”
There’s an app for that. Proptech gets credit for ramping up demand for pocket listings as dozens of high-end brokerages now offer buyers online access to curated, private databases of off-market homes.