I have several buyers who are looking for homes to buy. I regularly contact for sale by owners and I look for “coming soon” listings on Zillow.
I just want to say that some of those “coming soon’ listings were sold long ago. They are kept active because they can be used as bait by real estate agents.
There are also “coming soon” listings that have been coming soon for many months. Coming soon is a vague kind of thing. Soon can mean hours, days, weeks or months.
Information on Zillow has gotten a lot more accurate since out MLS feeds data to the service. We are required to keep the information in our MLS up-to-date and people who put bad data in can be fined.
Agents who pay for the service can put “coming soon” homes in Zillow that are not part of the feed.
To be fair I also contact homeowners who have listed their home as for sale by owner in Zillow and have found that some of them are not serious about selling but just want to see what happens.
Most but not all of the homes listed in the MLS are really for sale but sometimes especially over the weekend we do find houses that already have offers on them but have not had their status changed.
