SB 6091 | Washington’s Private Listing Ban
Unless you’ve sold your home recently, the concept of private listings is probably not one that you’ve pondered. This is for two reasons: first, residential real estate (as you know it), has largely relied on the forces of an open market to determine sales prices. Yes, Sellers and their brokers work together to determine asking prices; but once the home is listed, supply, demand, buyer motivation and other market forces all influence the final figure.
Why does this matter? We are currently in an affordability crisis in Washington State, and we have a housing shortage across the country. Against that backdrop, a change as small as a ½ percent increase in mortgage rates can have a negative impact on the sales price of an entry level home. And this is because unlike buying a car or another type of commodity, a home’s value is not fixed; it varies greatly based on the condition and context it is being sold in.
Which brings us back to the concept of an “open” market versus a “private” market. In an open market, Buyers can see the majority of homes currently for sale in ONE place online because the Listing Brokers agree to share them in our “Multiple Listing Service” (i.e. the MLS) and from there, the data syndicates out to all the major real estate websites.
Buyers (and Sellers, because we know you love comparing your property to others!) can see what similar homes in the area have sold for, what else is currently available, and what the sales history of a certain property may be – all in one place!
If local real estate brokers stopped using this system, searching for a home would be like searching for a rental. Checking in multiple locations, hunting for signs in yards, begging friends to put in a good word for you, etc. It’s a very fragmented (and frustrating) market that is not very consumer friendly. And while Fair Housing laws do make overt discrimination illegal in the rental space, they don’t change the fact that it’s a closed market that favors people with connections.
At a time when real estate opportunities are more scarce, and more expensive than ever, it seems unwise to make inventory even harder to find. So we applaud the legislature for passing this bill and will continue to market our listings in a way that reaches the broadest possible audience, benefitting both Buyers & Sellers. (Side note: the bill does have a carve out for health & safety issues, and MLS currently has many ways that Sellers can protect their privacy and limit access to their homes – just ask us for more info!)
