The subject of listing and re-listing homes has become a bit controversial and some of the controversy has been right here on this blog.
For those who do not know what I am talking about, it is the practice of taking a home off the market after it has been on for a few months and then putting it back on the market so that it looks like a new listing.
The truth is buyers often won’t look at a home that has been on the market for six months or so, on average the homes that have been sold this year in St. Paul, were on the market for a total of 5.7 months. Many were listed and re-listed because the current average days on market for the same sold listings comes out to 90 days.
I was contacted by ABC news a few weeks ago to be a part of their story on the subject. They kept asking me if I would recommend taking a home off the market and re-listing it as a way of selling it. They kept harping on listing, and re-listing as an important marketing took in a slower market. I saved some of the voice mail messages, and still have them. I was not interested in being interviewed for the story.
ABC called three times over a two day period. I was not at all comfortable with the fact that no matter how I answered a question, it was asked in a different way, with a kind of persistence that made me aware of what the desired response was supposed to be. There is no shortage of people who are happy to be on the news or in the paper. Reporters looking for a story are welcome to call any time, just don’t expect me to go along with your story because to me it is just a story.
The MLS, or RMLS that w use here in Minnesota tracks CDM, or cumulative days on market for all homes. Unfortunately the CDM is not available to the general public, but then neither is DOM, or "days on market". For buyers I say if you want to know how many times a home has been on the market in the past year and at what prices then please call a Realtor, if you are working directly with the seller, ask the seller.
As a listing agent I have to say that if my sellers asks me to take their home off the market and put it back on I do it. In some situations like with a dramatic price drop, or some remodeling I may even suggest that it be taken off the market and put back on. It is my job to represent the sellers, and to sell the house.
As for where I stand on the issue, to me it is a grey area. I need some help so that it can become a black and white issue with no shades of gray like it is for some. Last year I sold a home that had been on the market as a for sale by owner for many months. Did the person who bought the home cheated by not knowing that?
Earlier this month one of my listings went off the market because it expired. My client did not respond to the expiration fast enough. I had to re-list the home to get it back in the MLS and now it is getting showings like crazy. It is the exact same home, at the same price. I have a new listing that was on the market for six months, about six months ago. The sellers decided to rent it out and now have decided to sell it. In the last year it has been on the market for about five months, but looks like a new listing. It is also at a new price, one that is lower than what they started with last time.
When I move from Coldwell Banker Burnet to Keller Williams I had 5 listings on the market. All of the sellers I was representing asked me to continue marketing their homes so each one had to be "unlisted" and "re listed" under Keller Williams. I have contacted the buyers of each of those homes and none feel that they have been slighted.
I am always interested in learning something new and I strive to provide top notch services for my buyers and my sellers. I would love to hear a story from someone who bought a home that they thought was a new listing but turned out to be one that was taken off the market and then put back on, and what kind of harm it caused them. I would be happy to publish such a story so that we can all learn from it.
Realtors are requited by the code of ethics to disclose all material facts about a home. Is how many times the seller attempted to sell it a material fact?
*photo was taken by the lovely and talented Sarah Boardman, some where in France where she currently lives and works.
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I too am a listing agent (in Pinellas County FL) and I have found recently that leaving the listing in the MLS upon renewing or exending the contract is working better. We have approximately 17,000 listings in our MLS and an absorption rate of 3.8 percent for single family homes and 2.9 percent for condos. Since we are doing so many price drops I advise my sellers to leave their listings alone so that buyers and their agent can see where we started and what we have gotten down to. Just a note, our MLS’s days on market chart goes up to 400 days so it is not unheard of to have a house on the market for an extended period of time.
I think what is missing in the sensational or controversial stories is that real estate is local. Those numbers are for Pinellas, ONE of the counties that we sell in and which is doing better than Pasco, another county we sell in. If there is that much difference in Tampa Bay, how much must that vary from your market or Cleveland or Manhattan?
T, I have a seller that needed a break for a week. They have six kids 11 and under and she home schools.
I changed the status to Off Market and it disappeared and I had four agents and two buyers call me wondering what happened. As it turned out we had people interested with the let’s see if they go lower mindset. We lined up two buyers to see it at the same time and then got a full price offer.
I have another listing I am going to try that.
Theresa, I enjoy your blog and have been reading it about 3 months now. We were considering a move to the midwest but job issues have us staying put a few more years.
In my town a local realtor who is affiliated with a national chain sends out (for free–as advertising) a “Property Report.” The report lists all the houses sold in town over the past six months. The report includes such items as “Listing Price” “Sold Price” and “Days on Market.”
This is a small enough town that I know most of the houses listed in the report.
One house is listed as “DOM” 2; another at 7; a third at 36. Each of those homes has been for sale for more than 6 months. The one at “36 DOM” was for sale for over 10 months.
The realtor uses the “Average DOM” as a marketing tool.
When used this way it is deeply misleading about the market. If this is the quality of the information that rolls up to regional reports and then national reports, then we are getting a poor picture of the actual real estate market.
“Relisting” which resets the DOM is a misleading practice in general. Whatever the reason for the relist–recently expired listing, new price–when the DOM resets then a false statement is being made about the history of the house. Remember the definition of “willing buyer and willing seller”? It requires two parties informed of all the relevant facts.
We have the same DOM issues, currently our MLS does not track CDOM. If there is a price correction and then re-listed, then home sells in 40 days at the corrected price, it is my postition that it takes 40 days when priced correctly. Which means if you are past 40 days then you need to correct the price.
Not an exact science just interpeting data.
Alice – I guess all I can say is shame on the agent for publishing misleading data. there is an agent here who claims to sell properties in less than a month and he is using DOM because he lists and re-lists homes. I think it is always wrong to use data that way and in most cases it is not the reason for listing and re-listing.
Teresa,
This happens all the time with our listings at the company I work for. We allow Realtors to renew the tour/listing annually and gather them all together on a web page, and banner them “sold” if they wish. When the homes are sold, the come off of Realtor.com and the MLS.
I have only had one Realtor mention the extended or renewal listings after sale as being “wrong” or “unfair”.
This practice skews data,and it may put Realtors in a position where they literally don’t know the real “age” of a lisitng but in this dynamic marketplace any Realtor is going to this this as a commonplace – and perhaps neccessary – step in marketing the home.
Why not disclose it? It just creates more transparency.
Steve
Steve- the total days on market, CDM is available for all of my listings. people do call and ask for that information and I always give it to them.
Sad to see that Mr. Niece took the job instead of you. With the 109 comments received on the article, many calling him unethical, he is now in the position of defending himself. He should have know that the media would spin it to an unfavorable view towards agents.
With my buyers, I always tell them the CDOM, because it does make a difference on the homes value. As a listing agent, I never use the practice because I feel it is giving an unrealistic picture of the home. If it is a six month listing, it expires, and then the client signs a new six month listing, then I don’t consider it relisting. But if you do this practice in the middle of a listing, then I think it is not right.
Jennifer – trust me it is way better that Joe did it. i did not want to do it because I didn’t want to be the bad guy on national TV.
In Phoenix a home has to be off the MLS for 90 days before the DOM resets to zero. If you take a home off the market after 100 days and put it back on 35 days later, you’re at 101 days.
I think relisting soon after the expired listing which resets the DOM is still giving misleading info on the property–even if the listing agent has changed. The same house has still been on the market longer than the DOM shows. As a buyer, I would want to know that. And also, as a seller looking at avg. marketing times I would want to know what to expect.
Realtors should push to get CDOM if their MLS doesn’t record it.
Theresa mentioned relisting after the house has had some renovation. In that case I think a good argument could be made for relisting as the nature of the renovation may mean that, in essence, it is a different house for sale. Similarly, if the buyers said, take it off we’ll try again in a few months, it would be fair in my view to reset the DOM.
Why is DOM or CDOM of interest to Realtors?
Are any of those interests or reasons material to a buyer? If so, maybe the buyer or buyer’s agent ought to know.
Of course, there are many ways to skin a listing and if agent’s re-list mainly to make the listing “look” new, perhaps THAT question ought to be asked by the buyer or buyers agent, “was this house re-listed?”.
Another area of concern is that the Mlps Area Association of Realtors publishes stats that include the percentage of original list price received when properties sell. While they have the disclaimer “doesn’t include list price from any previous listings” in small print, this omission of information puts out misleading stats. As a consumer, I feel realtor groups are doing a disservice by allowing practices that allow their realtors to game the system and present information in an opaque manner. All this ends up doing is creating distrust between realtors and the public. I will be skeptical of you if you are trying to control the information. I will wonder what else is hidden. IMHO, if you have to ask yourself if something is ethical or not – its not. What I want is all the information so I can make a decision. If you attempt to change, withhold, or doctor any of this information – you are operating in an unethical manner and while you may sell a house or two a little quicker – you will be hurt in the long run.
I agree with Joe. Is DOM material to the buyer? If so, why? Likely, it is material because the agent tries to make it material. Does DOM have anything to do with the value of the home?
I think buyers place significance on DOM, reasoning that the longer a house is on the market, either something is wrong with it or it is overpriced. Now suppose DOM is not disclosed. The buyers agent should be able to show the buyer if the home is overpriced. An inspection will reveal any problems.
Put me in the column of thinking that DOM is for all intents and purposes irrelevant.
For what it’s worth, I’ll offer one lay person’s perspective:
I’ve bought two homes and never once looked at the DOM for any of the homes we saw. If I like the home and it’s at a price I’m comfortable with and it passes inspection, I could care less how many people have passed on it previously or how long it’s been waiting for me to come along.
I believe our first home was on the market about 6 months before we bought it. And that was in a good market. So what? I never regretted buying it.
When we sold that house, we were unhappy with our Realtor, so after our six-month contract expired, we got a new Realtor, did some painting and minor repairs and lowered the price. Of course, it showed up as a new listing, and it sold within a few weeks.
I must agree with the majority of the replies with respect to DOM not meaning a whole lot to a buyer in most cases. One reason a lot of agents may do the re-list is so the listing comes up on an agent’s email campaign; you know common item on real estate websites which email you when new listings come on the market that match your criteria. I’ve seen agents update the most trivial things on a listing, and assume it’s just so the listing shows up on the site as “updated” even if it’s just the punctuation in the remarks that’s updated.
This seems at least disingenuous and is not what I’d call ethical, even if it is just the equivalent of a little white lie. There are exceptions which render the process plenty ethical, and Teresa pointed out several good examples of this.
MT had it right when they said it’s Realtors gaming the system.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record because I repeat time and time again, “real estate is local.”
The way you handle DOM is not how we handle it here in Denver, Colorado. We have two sets of numbers 1) current DOM and 2)Total DOM. The only way the number resets is if the home is taken off the market for longer than 30 days.
HOWEVER, we have the ability to check “listing history” which goes back as long as we have records. This way we can see if the home has been going off and on the market.
I think they call that “transparency.” I sometimes have issues with the rules, but if all is above board and accurate who cares if the agent “refreshes?” All it is doing (in our case) is putting that property in front of buyers who might have just started looking.
That’s marketing.
kk
KK – the system here is almost identical. we have CDM, cumulative days on market and can look up a history that will go back years. Yup real estate is local, i may have mentioned that myself a few hundred times.
The reasons why don’t matter. A true real estate professional will disclose DOM stats and should be able to handle the answer for that question several different ways.
Mds
There’s another reason this concerns buyers that isn’t mentioned here. The mortgage financing buyers recieve can be altered due to how long the home has been marketed. Depending on your lender, this can result in an additional 5% reduction in the LTV. Meaning they need more money for the downpayment.
From my perspective as a buyer, it most definitely matters to me. We actively avoid homes that look like they have unrealistic sellers who would rather play games, they are not worth our time in this market.
A better way to sell your house is to try swapping. I recently ran into this site http://www.pad4pad.com Looks promising.
Good marketing does not include re-listing in my opinion. Much better to be honest with a buyer about how a long a home has been on the market – there is no shame in a home taking as long as needed to find the right buyer. It’s a shame that agents feel the need to play games.
I pulled a listing down for about a week and then re-listed it. Unfortunately, the one home we were really competing got an offer the week our property was not listed. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages. You need to just make sure your clients know both sides of the fence.
http://www.MoveToSpringHill.com
Teresa,
Tough question in my mind. Simple but not so simple answer is that sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. I think if you take a property off the market and re-list in a few days with the exact same price, look etc…no one is fooled. If a buyer is working with a good agent, this will not pass over anyone as a new listing. If the property on the other hand is taken off, given a new look with landscape, paint, staging, price change etc…then I think it is OK and can work.
I’m new to the business so questions that deal with ethics are very important to me. I think that if a listing has changed agents, the new agent deserves the ability to sell and market as a new listing. After all, the reasons it didn’t sell before could have been a lack of effort. Also, if a listing is being remodeled, updated, or significantly changed it should have a fresh start. I don’t agree that a listing should be taken off market and then just re-listed for the sake of changing the days on market. It is a tool used by buyers, and one that should be investigated by a Buyer Agent when presenting the property. As I mentioned, I’m new to the business but it only took me about a day on MLS to see that in order to get an accurate picture of the DOM you had to go to the history report. Listing agents represent the seller, Buyer Agents represent the buyer. If each does an accurate job researching comps, gathering accurate information and not lose sight of their responsabilities and ethics this should not be an issue.