Realtor's Banning Pocket Listings

[Brooks Johnson]

The National Association of Realtors Board recently voted to ban pocket listings by 5/1/2020 or sooner(timing depends on local boards/MLS). Meaning all Realtor listed properties will have to go in the MLS within 1 biz day of any public marketing. I'm a Realtor/Investor and I actually think this is really good for the market and consumers/investors. I think it will make the MLS as a source of deals much more competitive. I'm curious what Flippers, BRRR buyers think of it and if it will affect your business at all?? Any agent/wholesalers have any thoughts?

[Chris Mason]

The national MLS system is trying to stifle competition. Pretty flagrantly, too.

If a Realtor has a marketing strategy of having an exclusive period on another platform to collect bids, so it hits the main MLS hot and already bid up (or whatever, the exact strategy is irrelevant), they should be allowed to.

There should be a competitive marketplace for the good or service in question, no one should be forced to use just one good or service. This isn't a 'natural monopoly' like a utility company or subway system, there's no reason NOT to have multiple parallel providers of the good or service. Indeed, that already happened a decade ago with the Zillows, etc.

If someone told me I could ONLY publicly post mortgage-related information and content on biggerpockets.com, or that if I posted it elsewhere I ALSO had to post on biggerpockets.com, do you think I'd be here with my 8k of mostly informative (at least I like to think so) posts? Nope, heck no I wouldn't!

Entities that don't stick with the times risk rendering themselves obsolete (or obsolete faster). Competition is a thing. Marketplaces are real. Monopolistic behavior is bad. If the existing 'main' MLS in an area wants to get most or all of the local listings, they need to step up, be the most modern, up to date, easiest to use, add value, etc, and not be the clunky 1990s-feeling websites/portals that they currently are. THAT'S how you gain and maintain marketshare, sticking to examples we all know about, we can point to biggerpockets, we can point to the growth of zillow/redfin/etc (hate em all you want, you can't argue with success), the growth of the iPhone from when it was launched, and so on.

For existing giants trying to maintain marketshare, you just gotta stay relevant, you gotta stay important, you gotta keep innovating. Amazon. Microsoft. Apple (again). Biggerpockets.com (again). Google, and so on. You don't see Google banning users from using their search function if they give Bing a shot for a week, do you? No, that would be crazy, same thing here.