When it comes to pre-marketing strategies, how are Compass, eXp and Zillow different?

With more companies signing on to pre-marketing platforms, it appears that the new trend of pre-marketing listings is here to stay, at least for the moment. While the notion of a coming soon listing is nothing new, with numerous MLSs across the country offering some variation of this status, more and more listing portals and brokerages seem to be looking for ways to get those coming soon properties in front of more prospective buyers. 

The various products and programs launched so far have generated their fair share of conversation and confusion in the industry, so HousingWire has broken down three of the main programs announced so far to provide some clarity. 

Compass-Rocket-Redfin

Announced in late-February, the agreement between Compass International Holdings (CIH) and Rocket-Redfin to exclusively display Compass’s coming soon listings on Redfin was the first of these pre-marketing programs to hit the industry. The deal is mutually exclusive, meaning that Redfin cannot display the coming soon listings of other brokerages, and Compass cannot display its coming soon listings on other portals beyond its own brokerage website. 

Syndication of these coming soon listings began in mid-March with just Compass listings; however, CIH has said the program would expand to other brands in its portfolio in the coming months. Additionally, CIH said it is also exploring an experience like that on Compass.com, which gives consumers visibility into the number of Private Exclusives available in their area that would debut at a later date. 

As part of the program, Compass’s coming soon listings receive prime search result placement on Redfin, and days on market and price history are not displayed. While any Compass coming soon is eligible for display, sellers must consent to their coming soon listings being displayed on Redfin. In addition, in contrast to some of the other programs, coming soon listings can be pre-marketed on Redfin for as long as the seller would like.

According to Compass, the listing agent’s contact information will appear with the listing, and if a consumer submits a Contact Agent form on a Compass coming soon listing on Redfin, the lead will be routed first to the listing agent of record. That agent then has 24 hours to claim the buyer lead. If the lead remains unclaimed, it will be sent to an agent in the Compass Leads Program. Compass has also claimed that the program will create new opportunities for its agents to receive buyer leads directly from Redfin.com and Rocket.

The agreement also has a mortgage component, which is unique to this pre-marketing program, as the firms announced that CIH listings that close through Rocket-Redfin will be eligible for Rocket’s preferred pricing bundle, which the companies have said could result in up to $6,000 in closing cost savings to the consumer.

Zillow Preview

Announced in mid-March, Zillow Preview was the next portal pre-marketing product to hit the market, with syndicated coming soon listings hitting Zillow Preview this month. Like Compass’s arrangement with Rocket-Redfin, coming soon listings can only appear on Zillow Preview with a seller’s consent, but unlike the Compass agreement, coming soon listings displayed in Zillow Preview must follow local MLS rules. This means that if a listing cannot be publicly advertised for more than 24 hours before going active in the MLS, then the coming soon period can only be 24 hours. 

Additionally, with Zillow Preview, sellers can choose to display the number of days a listing has been on Zillow. However, once the listing goes active, the number of days the listing was in Preview will carry over, adding to its overall days on Zillow count. Zillow has also announced that statistics like saves and views also get carried over when a listing swaps from Preview to active.

The program is currently only available to agents at brokerages that partner with Zillow. So far, 58 brokerages and franchisors, including Side, United Real Estate, Keller Williams, REMAX, SERHANT., HomeServices of America, The Keyes Family of Companies and Engel & Völkers, have signed exclusive agreements with Zillow. Under these agreements, firms cannot display their coming soon listings on any other listing portal. However, Zillow has noted that some MLSs that offer a coming soon status syndicate those listings via IDX or VOW feeds, and Zillow will continue to display these listings regardless of whether the brokerage is part of Zillow Preview.

Listings displayed in Zillow Preview will have a contact agent button that will direct the consumer to the listing agent. If that consumer ends up working with the listing agent to purchase any property, including that listing, Zillow will not charge the listing agent for the buyer lead. Listings will also have a “schedule a tour” button, allowing consumers to schedule a tour of the property for when it becomes an active listing. When a buyer requests a tour, the buyer is put in contact with an agent who is a Zillow partner agent. If that buyer then ultimately works with that agent, the agent will be charged what they normally are for a buyer lead, but the listing agent that the buyer initially selected to tour will receive 10% of the buyer agent’s overall commission.

Zillow has clarified that this will be made possible by the company slashing its cut of the buyer agent’s commission. So instead of keeping the entire 35% referral fee, it will only keep 25%, with the other 10% of the buyer’s agent commission going to the listing agent, whose listing initially put the buyer in contact with the agent.

“We’ve made a lot of noise in the past year about listing transparency and how sellers benefit from broad exposure, and buyers deserve equal access to inventory and shouldn’t be forced to work with a particular brokerage to get access to inventory,” Errol Samuelson, the chief industry development officer at Zillow, told HousingWire in mid-March. “So, the idea of the preview is to provide exposure to these pre-active listings to everybody. We think it is a continuation of our work for transparency.” 

eXp Realty signs non-exclusive deals

While Zillow Preview and Compass’s Rocket deal have generated the most buzz, eXp Realty, the nation’s largest firm by transaction side count, also announced plans to pre-market coming soon listings in late-March. In order to pre-market these listings, eXp Realty signed non-exclusive deals with Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com, which is HouseCanary’s real estate portal that has partnered with Google to showcase listings in Google search results in select markets. As these are all non-exclusive agreements, eXp has said any portal may choose to receive eXp’s coming soon listings on equal terms, pending local MLS rules and the seller’s authorization. Additionally, the portals have issued their own statements welcoming other brokerages to join their programs.

Syndication of eXp’s listings, which will be up to the seller’s discretion, is slated to begin on April 15. Additionally, like Zillow Preview, the coming soon period for all listings is subject to local MLS rules and guidelines. 

Leo Pareja, the CEO of eXp Realty, told HousingWire in March that these agreements are a positive for consumers as they provide sellers with a broader listing exposure and they get coming soon listings in front of more consumers. His desire to get eXp’s listings in front of the widest audience possible is why Pareja said his company did not enter into an exclusive syndication agreement with just one portal.

“I am inviting any national portal that is willing to accept my feed on a non-exclusive basis to enter into a syndication deal because, in my opinion, the listings should be everywhere at the same time,” Pareja said. 

However, Pareja argues that the only reason eXp has had to sign these deals is because not all MLSs include coming soon listings in the IDX feeds they syndicate to portals and other sites. 

“If all the MLSs would just include the coming soon status listings in their IDX feeds and syndicate it to all the portals, then this would be a non-issue and none of us would have to do this,” Pareja said. “I believe that part of the MLS’s role is to make sure that they are listening to their customers. I believe in the MLS system, and I think I have been one of the loudest advocates for having a third party that is agnostic making rules. I think it is super important in order for us to have collaboration as an industry, but if something is going in a certain direction, I’d prefer all of it to exist at the MLS input level and then we wouldn’t have to figure out how to do it ourselves.”