Many real estate agents have told Intel that newly announced partnerships to fill “coming soon” properties won’t change the way they do business.
Many real estate agents do not see newly announced portal partnerships as a compelling reason to adopt “Coming Soon” listing periods more frequently, according to Intel’s latest research.
And most agents surveyed by Intel in March said they remained concerned about whether a move to pre-market listings would be good for consumers and the industry.
The Intel Index study comes days after the leading brokerage firm rolled out new pre-marketing partnerships with Zillow, Realtor.com and Homes.com, following Compass’ previously announced agreement with Rocket’s Redfin platform.
And while some agents think the additional portal exposure will help them make deals, it shows that many agents insist it won’t change their recommendations to clients.
For this analysis, Intel analyzed responses from two main groups. One is agents for Compass-owned brokerages or brands acquired by Compass. and agents who were part of the original Zillow Preview partner group. (The list of Zillow Preview partner agents has since expanded, but we were unable to investigate in time to understand their involvement.)
See the complete list of Intel findings in this week’s report.
uphill
The rise of pre-market listing partnerships is creating additional exposure opportunities to test pricing and gauge interest in listings prior to wider release on the MLS.
But few agents told Intel their recommendations to clients would change as a result.
And Compass and Zillow Preview agents have completely different perspectives on the new platform.
Compass agents were nearly four times more likely to say a new partnership would lead them to recommend upcoming strategies to clients “much more often” than agents with access to Zillow previews. Still, this group made up only one-fifth of Compass respondents.
Meanwhile, a small but sizable minority of agents with access to Zillow Preview (17% of agents surveyed by Intel) say the increased exposure has made coming soon options a more viable choice than before.
Therefore, it is clear that these new platforms will attract early adopters.
However, the majority of all agent respondent groups said they do not expect to change their recommendations to customers based on the availability of these new partnerships. These were divided into two main camps.
41% of Compass agent respondents said they already use premarketing when appropriate and would not change how often they recommend this strategy. Roughly the same percentage of Zillow Preview brokerage agents said the same. Just 22% of Compass respondents said they rarely or never use premarketing because they believe instant active listings on the MLS are in the best interest of consumers. Almost twice the share of Zillow Preview partner agents (38%) said the same.
Part of the resistance to widespread adoption of premarketing stems from long-standing ambivalence among agents about whether listing strategies actually deliver results.
Question: In your professional experience, how much does the sale price of a home change when you use a “coming soon” pre-market phasing strategy?
17 percent — My listings will sell for a higher sale price due to “coming soon” marketing. 51% — My listing will sell for about the same price either way. 6% — My product will sell for less due to “coming soon” marketing. 26 percent — I don’t have much experience with this strategy.
Perhaps surprisingly, even Compass agents were about the same as agents at other brokerages in this regard.
Most respondents said that a staged pre-marketing strategy did not result in a noticeable increase in selling prices compared to a traditional public campaign. But at the same time, more people said it helped than hurt.
And for most agencies that have pursued this strategy, there has been no obvious downside in terms of time to sale.
Question: What impact does a “coming soon” strategy have on the total time it takes to sell a home, considering both the pre-marketing stage and the active listing stage?
28 percent — Speeds up the overall process — Getting interest early often means you’ll get an offer as soon as the home is officially up and running. 37 percent — It takes about the same amount of time — The total number of days from listing agreement to offer acceptance remains relatively constant. 15 percent — lengthens the entire process — “coming soon” periods add days to the front end, but don’t consistently reduce time to offer once activated. 20 percent — I don’t have much experience with this strategy.
It’s worth noting that agents’ opinions on this question were divided in one area. Agents with a known relationship with Zillow Preview were twice as likely as Compass agents to say it takes longer to sell a home during the pre-market stage. Compass agents, on the other hand, were slightly more likely to say this strategy speeds up the overall home selling process.
Trends: Good or Bad?
But the Compass-Rocket camp and the Zillow Preview group of agencies were deeply divided on whether these new pre-marketing partnerships were good for the industry and consumers.
Question: Some of the new portal’s pre-marketing tools can reduce the “days on market” of a listing to zero, potentially hiding price changes during the preview stage. Which of the following best describes your thoughts on this?
43% — Data integrity is severely compromised — Obfuscating “days on market” and price history reduces the reliability of these metrics, harming buyers and the industry. 20 percent — slightly compromising data integrity — the accuracy of these indicators may decrease slightly, but the overall damage to the market will be minimal. 20 percent — Little to no impact — Industry and consumers seamlessly adapt to how pre-market time is tracked. 17% — Improves market fairness — “days on market” and premature price reductions can create an unfair stigma on listed companies. The ability for sellers to test the market privately is a net positive.
While agents are largely likely to say they see this as having an undesirable impact on market day confidence, Compass agency respondents were less confident.
Thirty percent of Compass respondents said they believed statistics such as “days on market” and price drop history unfairly stigmatize listings, and that a new approach would be fairer. This share was three times the share with Zillow Preview partner brokerages. Meanwhile, agents at brokerage firms affiliated with Zillow Preview were twice as likely as Compass agents to say they believe extensive premarketing risks significantly compromising data integrity (51 percent vs. 25 percent).
And while there’s no industry-wide consensus on whether this change will help or hurt consumers on balance, agents outside the Compass ecosystem are still leaning heavily toward broad pre-marketing wisdom, even after learning that their brokerage brand has signed a deal with one of the portals.
Sixty-one percent of brokerage respondents who work with Zillow Preview said they believe this move is a setback for their customers. A large portion of this group, representing 49% of Zillow Preview’s response pool, went so far as to describe this change as a “major threat to consumers.”
Compass agents, on the other hand, were more likely to think the move would benefit consumers, but were less likely to use confident language to explain the impact.
46% of Compass agent respondents said they believe the shift to premarketing is a net positive for consumers. However, less than half of that group (22 percent of Compass agent respondents) went so far as to call this a “big win” for their clients.
Our research will continue to track these trends over the coming months.
Methodology note: This month’s Inman Intel Index survey was conducted from March 24th to April 2nd and received 474 responses. The entire Inman reader community was invited to participate, and a rotating selection of randomly selected community members were encouraged to participate via email. Users answered a series of questions about their self-proclaimed niche in the real estate industry, including real estate agents, brokers, financiers, and proptech entrepreneurs. Results reflect the views of our passionate Inman community, but do not necessarily align with the views of the broader real estate industry. This survey is conducted monthly.
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