There are big names within the real estate industry rushing headlong into what many believe is a fairytale narrative of coming-soon listings, preview listings and private networks, branding it as the next great leap forward — one that gives buyers an edge and sellers control. This is a disingenuous ruse.
These practices are quietly setting the industry up for an increasingly fragile and more easily manipulated system for everyone involved — buyers, sellers and yes, even agents.
Let’s start with what happens to buyers
In these premarket listings, buyers are shown limited inventory with less information than one would find on the MLS. No history. No DOM. Missing or reduced pricing retrospective. And, depending on which platform is being searched, potentially inconsistent comparable sales.
At the same time, there is an implied nudge — or an outright shove — to act immediately before the home hits the open market. The result is a rush to make a decision armed with a woefully incomplete picture.
The subtle art of FOMO. Move fast or lose out. And, if you don’t work with “us,” it will be even worse because you won’t even know what you missed out on. The end result is that, as a buyer, you are an uninformed pawn.
In a toxic cocktail of urgency-without-transparency, there are predictable consequences: Buyers are unaware of the home’s true market value and are asked to make decisions without the comprehensive data and critical context they could formerly rely on.
Those within the industry calling this an opportunity know that the reality involves manipulation of data that will drive up their market share (and power) at the expense of the buyer.
Next, let’s turn to the sellers
When a home is launched in a restricted channel, regardless of whether that is accessible to 30 agents or 300,000, the seller does not have the ability to assess demand or determine pricing while taking into account the fully addressable market.
Instead, they are testing it against a limited collection of buyers who may, in fact, buy that property and who are also operating on equally limited data and competition-induced adrenaline, perhaps overpaying for a shot at the exclusivity.
However, this does not eliminate the possibility that the buyer may be underpaying. It’s a game of speed chess, where one side, caught in the momentum of speed and lack of transparency, gains the upper hand, at least for a moment. Because the aftermath of that move doesn’t just vanish following the close of escrow, the seller doesn’t always catch the “last helicopter out.”
When there is a rushed deal involving access to limited data, everyone involved faces a higher chance of disputes and an increased risk of exposure based on claims that the market context was never fully understood. Moreover, it comes with an important ethical question, too: Why would we do this to our clients?
As big brokerages and portals push premarket listings outside the MLS, they aren’t just changing when a home is seen. They are changing who controls the information.
The MLS has always been the neutral, albeit fragmented, foundation of standardized data and policies enforced on timing and equal access for all participants. When those safeguards are ignored or bypassed entirely, we don’t just get fragmentation. We get centralization that leads to control that enables manipulation.
Listings move into platform-controlled ecosystems where data fields are chosen and displayed selectively, and performance is judged by proprietary, internal metrics. When a platform chooses which data gets shown, hidden, and removed, and further, how listings are ranked, it influences demand, not dissimilar to those long lines behind velvet ropes outside a supposedly “exclusive” nightclub.
This artificial demand influences what values are assigned by buyers and at what prices properties might ultimately be sold. When that data becomes incomplete, scattered across different systems, or selectively filtered, it’s been manipulated, plain and simple.
The qualitative, human realities of a property that include:
- Deferred maintenance
- Outdated design or function
- Local neighborhood nuances
- Sunlight
- Fogbanks
- Underground streams
- Intrusive neighbors
All of those factors of a property that simply can’t be put into a data field disappear.
This brings us to the final, often ignored, consequence that is certainly not communicated by the companies pushing for restricted listings: If all of the listings, data, leads and transaction steps live within just a few single ecosystems, or even just one, in some future reality, the agent’s role as the independent advisor and the thoughtful strategist will inevitably shrink — perhaps not overnight, but eventually.
Their remit will subtly shift from advisor to gatekeeper, from strategist to simple facilitator and from advocate to just another participant in an ecosystem they helped build but no longer control.
And if the entire transaction — from finding the home to financing to closing — can be contained within one platform, there is a critical question that needs to be answered: Who is truly looking out for the consumer?
In its drive to create more control over listings, the industry is providing less transparency, less independent advice and more centralized influence over the final outcome. Real estate has always worked best when exposure is wide, data is consistent, and both buyers and sellers operate with a shared, clear understanding of the market.
Fragmenting listings and consolidating control may offer some short-term gains, but that’s not an advanced marketplace. It’s a controlled one.
Vanessa Bergmark is the owner and CEO of Red Oak Realty. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Instagram.
