What are the pros & cons of selling your home off-market (aka selling a pocket listing)? Jeremy McHone with the Whissel Realty Group explains the reasons why some of his clients chose to sell their home privately.

First, what is a pocket listing? A pocket listing is when your agent is marketing your home to his database of buyers and agents but your home's not actually on the market. So your home is not being syndicated to all the major websites like Zillow, Trulia, WhisselRealty.com.

What are the benefits of selling your home off market?

  1. You don't have to accommodate as many showings because you don't have as many people seeing your home and coming in to see it. Now, typically you're getting fewer showings but you're usually getting more qualified, motivated buyers in those showings. You're making up for it with quality.

  2. Another benefit of selling your home off-market is in this market a lot of buyers are missing out on properties and getting involved in bidding wars. Because of that, when they come in and see your home off-market you can use that as a bargaining chip in your negotiation 'cause they don't want to see you put on the market 'cause they know they're going to be involved in a bidding war. So you can use that negotiating to get their price up a little higher.

What are the downsides of selling your home off-market?

  1. The downside is you're not going to have as many people seeing your home because it's not on all the major websites.

  2. Another downside is if you're the type of person who has that fear of missing out, you might drive yourself crazy wondering if you would have gotten more money if you put your home actually on the market.

Now, when's a good time to sell your home off-market as a pocket listing? Here's an example. Jeremy recently had a couple of sellers that were going to sell their home and buy a new home but they didn't know which neighborhood they wanted to end up in and they knew that they were a few months away from narrowing down their search. So, in the meantime, he marketed their home as a pocket listing to his database and was able to bring them both buyers who were not only willing to pay over their asking price but were also willing to wait around 'til they found the home of their dreams so that they could avoid that bidding war. So the buyers avoided the bidding war, the sellers stick to their timeline and they get the amount they wanted. So, everybody wins.

Now, if you're wondering what the strategies are to actually get the home sold without putting it on the market, go ahead and call Jeremy at 619-971-0791. He'd love to chat with you about how he was able to sell three homes in the last three months without putting any of them on the market.