The war of private listings among residential players has largely played out through public statements by their CEOs.
Compass’ Robert Reffkin has been an outspoken critic of requirements to put homes on the MLS and Zillow, while listing services like Zillow and Redfin, and brokerages like Brown Harris Stevens and eXp Realty have touted the rules as a means of transparency.
Coldwell Banker Realty CEO Kamini Lane has been in the latter camp, penning a number of op-eds stressing the importance of publicly marketed listings.
“Certain large real estate brokerages are pushing sellers to begin listing their properties privately, claiming that it’s advantageous to the marketing strategy — despite what the basic logic of supply and demand might tell us,” she wrote in Inman in July.
But in an email to Coldwell Banker agents sent last week, she wrote about the firm’s “exciting updates” to its Exclusive Look platform that will give agents “more flexibility in marketing properties.”
Launched in 2020, Coldwell Banker’s Exclusive Look program allowed agents to share listings as office exclusives with other agents within the local brokerage firm, or as a Sneak Peek for 24 hours before the listing his the MLS, which could be sent to all Coldwell Banker agents.
In the email, Lane said that the company’s Sneak Peek feature would be expanded to allow agents to share listings with all agents in the Anywhere Real Estate network for 24 hours before being added to the MLS.
Anywhere Real Estate is the holding company for Coldwell Banker, as well as other national brands like Corcoran and Sotheby’s International Realty.
Exclusive Look allows agents “to leverage the power of our network for those limited instances in which an agent and their client choose to pursue a more private marketing effort,” Lane said in a statement. “This decision should be a strategic conversation between agents and their clients, and there has always been a small segment of sellers who prefer different approaches in marketing their properties.”
In the email, Lane reemphasized her stance on the importance of publicly listing properties.
“As a reminder, we continue to believe that broad, public distribution is best for most properties because, at the end of the day, maximum transparency generally benefits buyers, sellers, and agents alike,” she wrote.
She added in a statement that “we have been vocal that a transparent, broad distribution of listings is best for the vast majority of buyers, sellers, and agents — that has not changed.”
The tension between Lane’s stated commitment to transparency and the continued evolution of its off-market program speaks to the brokerage’s struggle to navigate a turbulent time in the industry where its unclear what the nature of listing home will look like in the future.
The showdown over how listings are marketed has moved to the courts most recently, where Compass, which has been rapidly growing its off-MLS inventory, sued Zillow in June in response to the listing website’s policy that banned listings that were publicly marketed without being uploaded to Zillow.
Anywhere, Coldwell Banker’s parent and the second-largest brokerage in the country, has sat on the fence for the majority of the spat. In earnings calls, CEO Ryan Schneider has emphasized how the company stands to benefit from an industry with more off-MLS inventory, while recently positioning Anywhere’s commitment to publicly marketing its listings.
“We’re leaning in pretty hard to the broad distribution of listings [being] the best for buyers and sellers,” Schneider said during the first quarter earnings call.
But in the second quarter earnings call, Schneider informed investors that “we like the preparation for a defensive play if the world does go more toward private listings.”
Coldwell Banker’s programs all adhere to the rules governing listings by the National Association of Realtors, something Compass has long flouted with its Coming Soon program, which publishes listings on its website before submitting them to the MLS. In July, Compass informed NAR that it would no longer be following its guidelines.