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I cannot say with certainty what she did was legal in your locale. I can tell you, based on what you've said, it would be illegal in my state because she was advertising your property (the sign in the yard) without ANY written agreement in place. As a matter of fact, I'd wonder if she gave them ANY information on your house prior to signing the listing agreement.
Imagine if she had entered it into the MLS as Coming Soon, such that it didn't require buyers and agents to happen upon the sign to know the house was coming on the market. Imagine if the day it was going live, appointments were lined up all day because 90%+ of the market of buyers knew about your home. Imagine if you got multiple offers, and wound up selling it either to some other Buyer, or even those Buyers, on better terms than you.
The question isn't how those unknowing buyers and agents felt about the situation though. It's how would you have felt. If you were perfectly satisfied with everything, then congratulations. The satisfaction of the represented party is our only obligation in such a circumstance.
But also imagine if that sign went in the yard and SHE landed and represented the Buyers based on them seeing the sign, and no other Realtor or buyer knew about the house.
I want to clarify something.
When she put the sign "Coming Soon" in my yard, it didn't have ANY identifying info on it about her or her company or even realtor.com - nothing. Just "Coming Soon." So no one could reach her unless I gave them the information. Which I didn't do.
That being said, people must have taken notice because on the first day of the listing, we had 3 showings the first hour, and an offer, and were under contract within just a few hours.
I'm curious as to why? Wouldn't you want as many people to have an opportunity to buy as possible? Did the buyer pay a higher than list place to compensate you for not putting the property on the market?
Yes, they paid over asking price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoBromhal
so no agent ever showed your home - someone bought it "sight unseen" (except maybe some online photos)?
They did see it before making an offer.
We weren't trying to squeeze every penny out of the house; we wanted it sold and the extra money we might have been able to make by not accepting the first offer was at risk of being eaten up in carrying costs or more repair requests prior to closing. We wanted a fast, clean sale...and we got it.
We accepted an offer on our property when the "coming soon" sign was still up. It happens a lot in that area. I can't speak for other sellers, but we were 100% on the up and up. So was our realtor.
semantics, but did your agent coordinate the eventual buyer viewing the home while still Coming Soon, or did they show up at your door and you let them in?
If your agent helped arrange them going by, that would be "against the rules" of my local MLS (and possibly not on the "up and up" from your agents perspective), as the property is required to be moved to Active status for any showings to start.
This thread is interesting to me as my local MLS just changed their rules and now will levy fines up to $5,000 for agents trying to circumvent the policy of having a property Active in the MLS in order to try and sell it during Coming Soon. It appears waivers can be asked for for private listings, but I imagine the local MLS wont "allow" any type of public marketing (sign in the yard, consumer website exposure), just word of mouth within offices to protect a sellers privacy
semantics, but did your agent coordinate the eventual buyer viewing the home while still Coming Soon, or did they show up at your door and you let them in?
If your agent helped arrange them going by, that would be "against the rules" of my local MLS (and possibly not on the "up and up" from your agents perspective), as the property is required to be moved to Active status for any showings to start.
This thread is interesting to me as my local MLS just changed their rules and now will levy fines up to $5,000 for agents trying to circumvent the policy of having a property Active in the MLS in order to try and sell it during Coming Soon. It appears waivers can be asked for for private listings, but I imagine the local MLS wont "allow" any type of public marketing (sign in the yard, consumer website exposure), just word of mouth within offices to protect a sellers privacy
No, we let them in. Once they expressed interest in buying the property, all further correspondence was conducted via our agents.
See, that would get the agent a fine in our local MLS.
Coming Soon = NO Showings by agent or owner.
Why couldn't the owner show the house?
And personally, just from a seller's perspective, if I knew I was listing with a particular agent in a week, and that agent called me and said, "I know it's not officially listed yet, but I'd love to show your home to some really interested buyers," I would strongly consider it.
That's not what happened though - in fact, our agent held off other agents (from her office, who knew she was going to list our house) with buyers till the listing went "live," and then we had three showings and an accepted offer within a few hours. The buyers weren't "hers" just for the record.
I considered it good marketing. Fire up the market, have them chomping at the bit, lined up. Whatever she did, it worked.
And personally, just from a seller's perspective, if I knew I was listing with a particular agent in a week, and that agent called me and said, "I know it's not officially listed yet, but I'd love to show your home to some really interested buyers," I would strongly consider it.
That's not what happened though - in fact, our agent held off other agents (from her office, who knew she was going to list our house) with buyers till the listing went "live," and then we had three showings and an accepted offer within a few hours. The buyers weren't "hers" just for the record.
I considered it good marketing. Fire up the market, have them chomping at the bit, lined up. Whatever she did, it worked.
Why couldn't the owner show the house?
Because they agreed to certain stipulations to access the most dynamic marketing opportunity in the nation.
Because "Coming Soon" doesn't mean "It's Here." It means "It Will Be Here Soon."
Because using "Coming Soon" but showing on the down low is a mechanism used to exclude protected classes.
Our Coming Soon MLS status includes required paperwork in which the seller agrees not to show the house.
Yet, excluding buyers and showing on the down low is currently a rampant ethical plague.
"Showing" is not marketing. It is sales. Two different parts of the process.
Why couldn't the owner show the house?
Because they agreed to certain stipulations to access the most dynamic marketing opportunity in the nation.
Because "Coming Soon" doesn't mean "It's Here." It means "It Will Be Here Soon."
Because using "Coming Soon" but showing on the down low is a mechanism used to exclude protected classes.
Our Coming Soon MLS status includes required paperwork in which the seller agrees not to show the house.
Yet, excluding buyers and showing on the down low is currently a rampant ethical plague.
"Showing" is not marketing. It is sales. Two different parts of the process.
When a realtor here puts a Coming Soon sign in the yard, it's not in the MLS. It's not being "marketed." I would think an owner could show it to anyone they wanted to.
Sellers don't have to sign anything prior to listing. I could have changed my mind and gone FSBO, sold it and kept every bit of the sale price, or listed it with another realtor, whatever, till the day of the actual listing. Not that I was interested in doing any of that but I COULD have.
And thanks, but I do understand the difference between sales and marketing. I felt that the sign "Coming Soon" was a good MARKETING tool. It increased interest in the house up till the day of the listing. That's what I described.
I don't know about your market but I'm glad the process we have in place here is legally and ethically sound - and apparently it works.
When a realtor here puts a Coming Soon sign in the yard, it's not in the MLS. It's not being "marketed." I would think an owner could show it to anyone they wanted to.
Sellers don't have to sign anything prior to listing. I could have changed my mind and gone FSBO, sold it and kept every bit of the sale price, or listed it with another realtor, whatever, till the day of the actual listing. Not that I was interested in doing any of that but I COULD have.
You are talking about your local MLS.
There is a lot of variety in MLS rules and local regulations.
The point of the thread is that NAR is looking for some conformity and regulation of member MLSs and NAR members.
Overall, it is good news they are doing so.
Also, that is smart of NAR, as state regulators are examining the behaviors of agents in the Coming Soon debacles.
You are talking about your local MLS.
There is a lot of variety in MLS rules and local regulations.
The point of the thread is that NAR is looking for some conformity and regulation of member MLSs and NAR members.
Overall, it is good news they are doing so.
Also, that is smart of NAR, as state regulators are examining the behaviors of agents in the Coming Soon debacles.
To be fair, you did mention locally owned MLS's as well as NAR in the OP.
I hope they do look into it and tighten up things in different markets. What I'm saying is that in OUR market it didn't seem to be any sort of issue, so I hope that NAR looks at what markets like ours do with "Coming Soon" listings. It seemed to work well and as a seller (and a buyer) I wasn't uncomfortable at all with the process.
Like I said, there was NO paperwork signed, NO identifying stuff (realtor or brokerage) on the signage. What I as the seller felt like it was doing was two things: 1) letting people know to look out for this house to hit the market if they were interested in it (we had a very visible, pretty "famous" house and sure enough, come to find out the buyers had been driving by it and eyeing it for and hoping for YEARS that it would hit the market), and 2) reminding my husband and me that yes, our realtor was expecting to list it and we'd made that commitment to her verbally (fine by me).
There's been no debacle within our system from what I can tell. If people don't know how to contact the agent and can only stop by and ask the seller questions (which seems perfectly legal to me, though not necessarily great from an agent's perspective), I don't see the problem. The only people who knew that a particular agent was going to list the house were the people in her office - and that's pretty normal practice from what I can tell ("I'm about to list such and such house, so heads' up.") In fact, the agent who brought the buyers, who were chomping at the bit, wasn't from our realtor's brokerage and didn't even know our realtor. But her buyers had told her to watch that MLS like a hawk and she did.
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