Quoted Article from Sam DeBord:  “There has been a lot of discussion lately about the propriety of pre-marketing listings. Promoting a “coming soon” listing on Zillow has been widely debated.  I’ll attempt to make the discussion for a REALTOR® as simple as possible.

Ask yourself one single question, and you’ll know how to deal with this issue.  If you attempt to sell your client’s listing during a “coming soon” time period on an Internet portal that receives less than 20 percent of all real estate Internet traffic, but not advertise it simultaneously on the MLS and other websites (with delayed showing instructions if necessary): “What specific benefit are you telling your sellers they will receive by skipping the exposure to agents on the MLS, and buyers on agent, broker, and other portal websites?”

I’ve asked this question repeatedly to real estate professionals this week and have yet to receive a response.  If we, as real estate professionals don’t have an answer as to why it is in our clients’ best interests, it will be assumed that we’re doing it to benefit ourselves.”  Article Courtesy of Realtor.org:  Sam DeBord is a state director for Washington REALTORS®, and managing broker with Coldwell Banker Danforth.

Related Article:  Sounding the Alarms on Pocket Listings