Housing is presently out of reach for many Americans. Mortgage rates remain above 6%. Existing-home prices are above $400,000. Sales are weak, and available houses are increasingly difficult to find.
Some in the real estate industry are framing private housing listings as “seller choice.” That sounds good. Sellers should have choices. But the real question is: choice to do what? Choice to get less exposure, fewer bidders, weaker price discovery, and a process that may benefit the agent more than the homeowner?
That is not a choice most sellers would knowingly make if the trade-offs were clear. Families need more homes, more information, and more competition available. They do not need more gatekeeping. That is why the distinction between pre-marketing and private listings matters.
Pre-marketing can be a useful market tool. A seller may want to test interest, prepare a better public launch, or gather feedback before going fully active. That’s fine if buyers can see the home without being forced into a closed brokerage network.
Private listings are different. They restrict information to select channels. Buyers outside those channels may never know the home exists. Sellers may never reach the full pool of bidders. That is not market efficiency. It is fragmentation.
This is also where criticism of public pre-marketing tools misses the point. This should not be about defending a platform’s business model. Large platforms deserve scrutiny, too, especially when federal regulators are already raising questions about competition in online real estate markets. The issue here is narrower and more important: whether listings are broadly visible to consumers or hidden behind brokerage walls.
Zillow and Realtor.com recently announced that pre-market listings would be visible across both platforms with no brokerage relationship required, a clear example that it is possible to “pre-market” without steering consumers and harming the market. It does mean broadly visible pre-marketing is different from a closed system where buyers must work through a specific brokerage just to know the available inventory.
Markets work best when information is open, and prices reflect broad competition. That is basic economics. When listings are hidden, buyers incur higher search costs and experience poorer matching. Sellers face a smaller pool of potential bidders. Prices become less informative. The obvious winner is often the intermediary who controls access.
The incentive for intermediaries to add costs at the expense of everyone is real. Sellers want the best price and terms for what is usually their largest asset. But agents and brokerages benefit more when both sides of the transaction remain within their own networks.
The demand for private listings also appears limited. A recent agent survey found that 69% of agents said none of their clients requested a private listing, while 54% said they would not recommend the strategy for any client. If most sellers aren't asking for private listings, who is really pushing them?
The best argument for private listings is privacy. Some sellers have safety concerns. Some are high-profile. Some may want limited showings during a sensitive family or financial situation. Those cases exist and should be respected, but they already have a path. Exceptions should not become the industry standard, especially in a strained housing market where buyers already struggle to find homes.
Another argument is that private listings could unlock more inventory by letting hesitant sellers “test the waters.” A Redfin analysis suggested phased marketing could increase inventory by 6% to 12%. But that estimate depends entirely on somewhat arbitrary assumptions about seller behavior, not any actual examples from real markets.
The model also misses real costs. Buyers excluded from private channels may never bid. Sellers who receive weak early signals may never list publicly. Homes that quietly fail in a private network may carry stigma when they finally hit the open market. The math looks clean. Reality is messier.
Hidden listings make an already challenging housing market worse in an era of undersupply. America did not underbuild because listings were too visible. It is underbuilt because the government made housing too expensive and too slow through zoning restrictions, permitting delays, fees, parking mandates, minimum lot sizes, and other barriers. Housing needs supply, not scapegoats.
Recent new-home data reinforce the point. When builders can deliver more inventory, buyers get more options and prices can ease. New single-family home sales rose in March while the median new-construction home price fell to $387,400. That is what more supply and competition can do.
Families need more homes, not more games. Sellers need more bidders, not fewer. Buyers need transparency, not gatekeepers. The housing market will improve when we build more, keep information open, and get the government out of the way.
