Coach Darryl Davis may have seen a study that claims to show a price premium for private listings. The truth is quite different and far more complex.
If you’ve been around a boardroom, brokerage meeting, or real estate social media feed in recent weeks, you’ve probably heard about a new academic paper by University of Georgia finance professor Darren K. Hayunga. The paper details a study of over 700,000 transactions. Private listings were found to generate a price premium for sellers.
The private listing camp treats it like a gift from the research gods. This paper is being cited in presentations, dropped into group chats, and forwarded to agents as proof of what the science says, and MLS supporters need to sit down and be silent.
There’s just one problem. Most people circulating this paper have not read the abstract.
I read it. Everything. And what it actually says is almost the opposite of what is being claimed. Let’s explain about it.
What the paper claims
The study was titled “Pocket Sales in the Housing Market: Choices, Consequences, and Policy” and was posted to SSRN in late February 2026.
Dr. Hayunga looked at zero-day-on-market home transactions recorded on the MLS, meaning transactions where a buyer was found privately before the property went public. His methodology is sophisticated. He compared these private sales to comparable standard MLS transactions in the same region and market conditions using something called coarse-grain matching.
His headline finding was that sellers who conducted private transactions earned approximately 1.7% more than sellers who went through the standard MLS process. For luxury real estate, that number jumped to more than 8%.
That sounds important. If this is all there is to it, then the claims of proponents of private listings would be justified.
But that’s not all. This is what happens if you keep reading.
What this paper actually concludes
Hayunga then analyzed what happened after the National Association of Realtors implemented a clear cooperation policy in May 2020. And here the paper stopped supporting the discussion taking place about it.
After the CCP was implemented, the pocket sale premium collapsed. It hasn’t softened. It collapsed. The pre-CCP premium was 3.3%. The post-CCP premium fell to 0.9%. This is a 73% decrease. And the phrase this study uses to explain that 0.9 percent number is: This means that it is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
Those are not my words. These are the words of a researcher. “Statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
In other words, the studies being circulated as evidence that private listings work are studies in which the data themselves show that once meaningful policy guardrails are in place, the economic benefits of private listings are virtually non-existent.
Let it land for a while.
Here are the discussions taking place: Academic research proves that private listings create a price premium.
Actual research shows that the price premium disappeared once regulations were introduced. When you use this research to argue against regulation, you are using evidence that the regulation worked to argue that it should be abolished.
The part no one mentions
There are other things in this paper that I have never seen cited in the conversation surrounding it.
Last page.
After 55 pages of complex econometric analysis, here’s how Dr. Hayunga and his team concluded their original study. In their words, private listing strategies are “regulated by both policy and private platforms.” They said the major platforms are “in line with the Chinese Communist Party’s transparency mandates” and that “the ability to broadly sell homes without listing them is being structurally dismantled.”
Please read it again. The researchers, whose findings are being used to justify private listings, concluded their paper by saying that this strategy is dying.
This would be like a scientist publishing a study in 2018 showing that a drug produced results, and then adding a footnote at the end saying the drug was taken off the market in 2020. The headline sounds promising. In short, the story is over.
The people who circulate this newspaper pass only the headlines to agents, leaving out the footnotes.
4 things to know before citing this study
If you’re going to reference this research in a list presentation, team meeting, or social media post, here are four things you need to know:
First, this paper has not been peer-reviewed. This is an SSRN preprint. This means that although it has been published, it has not yet undergone the independent academic scrutiny that research requires before it can be treated as definitive evidence. Peer review exists precisely to uncover methodological problems and test whether the results are valid. That process isn’t happening here. Second, this study covers one market from 2002 to 2022: Dallas-Fort Worth. This is a specific region with specific market dynamics. Applying the findings of one metropolitan area as a universal law is not analysis. That’s a stretch. Third, the data ends in 2022. Compass and Redfin’s partnership, Zillow’s policy change, a February 2026 federal court ruling, and a broader platform-level transition to MLS transparency requirements all occurred after the period covered by this study. The market described in this paper has already undergone significant changes. Fourth, and this is most important. Section 6 of the study itself contradicts its headline findings. The 1.7% premium existed before CCP. The researchers’ own numbers show that after CCP, it disappeared. Citing the heading without citing section 6 does not summarize the research. It’s about reading research selectively to get the answers you want.
what this means for you
I’m not writing this to tell you that private lists are never appropriate. In limited circumstances, such as a seller’s specific circumstances (genuine privacy concerns, medical situations, security needs, particularly complex personal circumstances), it may be worth considering a private approach.
But those are the exceptions. And sellers need to see honest data about the typical costs of each route to make an informed choice.
What’s happening now in some parts of the industry is that preprints that are circulated before peer review are treated as settled science. The headline findings are further expanded. The CCP’s findings in Article 6 are ignored. The author’s own conclusion that this strategy is regulated is left on the editing room floor.
Your seller deserves more than that. And frankly, so are you.
Read the research before you cite it. Everything. Including the part where the researchers themselves discuss their conclusions.
This was it. Just start listening.
