Phantom Listings

[Michael B.]

I'm not a RE agent, and never have been one. Here's something that happened last week. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this, especially from agents.

About 2 months ago a house came on the market in a neighborhood that I know pretty well. They're newer homes (subdivision built in 2006-2008) and right now going for between $110k and $130k. The home was a foreclosure (BofA) priced at $62,900. I immediately called my agent to see it. Lots of repairs required, but it was a steal at $62,900. I put in a full price offer on the 2nd day of the listing.

But obviously lots of people liked this house. They had 9 offers in the first 3 days. They did a couple rounds of 'Best and Final' offers. I dropped out when it became obvious what was happening. The winning bidder got the house at $85,000. In my opinion the deal when from Great deal --> Good Deal --> OK deal in that time. It went pending in the MLS and was pulled from Zillow and Trulia at this point.

Last week I was trolling Trulia and the house was back, same listing agent, again priced at $62,900. It wasn't in the MLS so I called my Realtor to see what was happening. When I told him about the trulia listing his response was typically blunt: Not for sale. Phantom listing. Bait and Switch. Call 'em and they'll divert you to other properties. F***ing Bottom feeders. (My agent never mastered the art of sales chatter. Actually sometimes it seems he barely mastered the art of the spoken word. But he has a good eye for real estate and is very thorough in finding ways to get the deal done.)

So I called the listing agent and of course the property just went under contract, but he had a couple of others in that price range ...

Just wondered how common this is. There are lots of properties listed by agents in Zillow and Trulia that never make it to the MLS. How many are really "phantom listings", designed to get calls. Also I'd be interested in how you see the ethics pushing a property that's not really for sale to make the phone ring.

[J Scott]

I've never seen an agent do this in my area. If they were caught, they'd likely get in trouble with both their broker and the MLS. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I'd be surprised if many agents were employing this technique -- I imagine it's frowned upon in most areas, and the deception could easily be determined by anyone with access to recent sales data.

[Chris Clothier]

I too have not seen this happen in either of the cities where we invest, but i also don't find it surprising. I also am not surprised that they used a site like Trulia to do it. Sounds like a version of many poor business practices used to rent houses through craigslist or for wholesalers to snag buyers with fake home ads.

[Jay Nalker]

I found one of the houses I own listed for sale on zillow. The listing had been canceled and opened a few times. I sent the listing agent an email asking what was going on. never heard back but the listing went away. this could have been a phantom listing like you described???

[Karen Margrave]

Michael B. I'd like to say it doesn't happen. Unfortunately, since moving to so Cal, I've run into it a few times. One was a listing on Loopnet. I called the agent that refused to give me any info and was told to send an offer. I told him I'd be happy to if he could provide the information. It was supposed to be 3 lots with plans ready, in San Clemente, on a street named Chula Vista. After researching the listing, I found out it was actually a parcel the agent had owned at one time, but it had been foreclosed on. He continued to advertise the property, even though it's been resold. FINALLY after my complaining several times to Loopnet they made him change the status of the listing, but not withdraw it. I explained to Loopnet that when people are paying for their website, they expect the listings to be actual listings, not fakes for ad calls for agents. That same agent has several lisitngs, none of which are real listings.

Then.. another listing on land has been offered on MLS and it has geological problems the listing agent and owner are very aware of. They keep going into escrow, push for a non refundable deposit in a few days (because it's so underpriced buyers do it) and then, low and behold, they find out the issues and drop out of the agreement.

So, unfortunately, there are unscrupulous agents out there, and we as brokers/agents hate to see it more than you do, because they give all of us a bad name!

[Kelly N.]

I think I've seen a form of this too- the house we contracted in November and close don in January is still listed as active on realtor.com, along with the house we didn't get that closed in December. There are others that seem to change the status as soon as something happens, I figured these were lagging in order to get more interest like you said. I haven't called the listing agent, but now I am wondering what I would be told if I did :)

[Robert Blake]

We had the same thing happen - closed on a personal residence in July, some unrelated company I've never heard of and who had no interest in the property listed it in November at a higher price and didn't remove it until the following March.

[Wayne Brooks]

I'm an agent, and have never even put any listings directly into Trulia, Zillow, etc. After going into the MLS, they automatically go to those sites. I see lots of out dated data on those sites, that I assumed was just inefficiency, but maybe not. Call me Dummy, but I wasn't even aware an agent could "list" something for sale directly into Trulia, Zillow, etc., but I don't advertise for buyers to work with like that.

[Bill Gulley]

Sounds like a few violations, you could begin with the FTC. :)