The so-called “pocket listing” lawsuit involving the PLS against three regional listing services has been resolved, although litigation by PLS against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is still pending.
Reuters reported lawyers for PLS reached out-of-court settlements with California Regional Multiple Listing Service, Bright MLS and Midwest Real Estate Data. PLS filed its lawsuit against the three services and NAR in 2020, claiming they tried to thwart its growth. PLS offered a “pocket listing” where real estate agents could market their properties outside of the regional multiple listing services.
In its lawsuit, PLS claimed NAR violated antitrust law by demanding that an agent who wanted to list a home on its platform also include the property on a multiple listing service. PLS’ complaint had been dismissed but was revived in April 2022 by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in April 2022. The terms of the settlements were not made public.
PLS was co-founded in 2017 by Mauricio Umansky and has since been rebranded as TheNLS.com. Earlier this week, Umansky unveiled the American Real Estate Association as an alternative to NAR and featured TheNLS.com as one of the benefits for membership.
You will never be able to convince me that ‘pocket listings’ are anything but greed. They clearly breach the fiduciary duty an agent pledges to a Seller by not exposing their property to the greatest number of probable buyers. It may even promote illegal discrimination in some cases. Just say “no” to pocket listings.
That is why our MLS makes us activate the listing with 24 hours of any ad and digital distribution. We had numerous brokers keeping in house or doing ‘coming soon’ for multiple weeks.
Pocket listings are important if the seller is known and doesn’t want his information or the perception he is struggling.
I work certain niches therefore not everyone would or should play. If the seller wants privacy it’s his call how a property is marketed.