Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Does it not seem a but unethical to do this? I watch real estate prices and I see some properties list for hundreds of days, If not years. Then they relist it to show it as a New Listing. The new listing, more often than not, is the same or a higher price. Rationale?
Does it not seem a but unethical to do this? I watch real estate prices and I see some properties list for hundreds of days, If not years. Then they relist it to show it as a New Listing. The new listing, more often than not, is the same or a higher price. Rationale?
There is no ethical issue. Real estate listings on MLS are shared between brokers, as that is the MLS purpose.
As long as the listing agent does not misrepresent the property, it is shared and open to discovery of material fact by other agents.
People are allowed to try to sell their properties at whatever prices they care to. Every seller has their own rationale.
In our MLS, agents can withdraw a listing and relist the same day to get a new MLS number and a reset on "days on market" to zero. On one hand it's a legitimate tactic to get the listing to show up as fresh on the hot list of new listings, but, in my opinion, the side effect (whether they admit or not) of deceiving the consumer who may not have under-the-hood access to the MLS history is reason enough not to do it. Another questionable practice that has gone on for so long that it's just accepted as OK. In my book, NOT.
In our MLS, agents can withdraw a listing and relist the same day to get a new MLS number and a reset on "days on market" to zero. On one hand it's a legitimate tactic to get the listing to show up as fresh on the hot list of new listings, but, in my opinion, the side effect (whether they admit or not) of deceiving the consumer who may not have under-the-hood access to the MLS history is reason enough not to do it. Another questionable practice that has gone on for so long that it's just accepted as OK. In my book, NOT.
Most prospective homeowners these days have smartphone apps like zillow. Zillow is great for showing the listing history of a particular home no matter how many times its been delisted to show up as a fresh listing.
If a buyer has just started house shopping, yes, they can easily be fooled. But if the price/house/location is right to them, what should they care? If they knew it had previously been on the market, it might give them a bargaining edge, but maybe not.
Most buyers who have been searching for a home for months will not be fooled -- they've already considered and rejected the re-listed house. 20 years ago when I was looking for my first house, pre-internet days, agents would try to show me houses that I knew had been previously listed with another realtor -- and sometimes there'd be a competitor's old sign leaning on the side of the house, waiting to be picked up!
It's similar to job hunting -- jobs are re-posted every day, and it's very frustrating to wade through all the old "new" postings.
If its been on/off market for months or years, knowing that probably won't give you a bargaining edge, since the seller is obviously dillusional and won't take a lower offer any way, or else they would have sold it long before. But it is good to know.
I guess some sellers are just looking for that "greater fool", who will pay list or ignore the defect. There's a house in a neighborhood I'm watching - its old, no major updates, and fronts on a highway. literally dozens of houses have listed and sold, most for less than this very marginal property. But the seller won't budge...
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
6,957 posts, read 22,313,597 times
Reputation: 6471
I do it, just to screw with the aggregation (aggravation) websites. It also helps to do this to put the property in front of the lazy realtors who only look at the "new" properties on the market.
I have no issues with being upfront with anyone that asks about how long it's been on the market. I am bound by trying to get the best price for my sellers, if this is part of doing that, then so be it.
Our MLS has a field that shows the total amount of time that a particular property has been listed even if there has been a gap up to two months. So the "listing time" gets reset but the "total listing time" still accrues. It makes sense to do it that way.
In any event, buyer's agents should be doing MLS searches to inquire into the history of a property on the market before their buyer places an offer. I agree that it is a shady practice and one that the Realtor's assocations shouldn't allow.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Exactly
