What the "Coming Soon" Debate Actually Means for Bay Area Buyers and Sellers
If you follow real estate news, you have probably seen the headlines about "coming soon" listings, off-market deals, and exclusive portal partnerships. This piece cuts through the national debate to explain what is actually happening, what it means on the Peninsula, and where we stand.
What's changing nationally
For decades, the MLS was where homes went to be sold. It was not perfect, but it was broadly visible. Any buyer, working with any agent, could generally see what was available. That system is now under more pressure.
In recent weeks, HousingWire reporter Brooklee Han documented a wave of deals reshaping how listings reach buyers. Compass struck an exclusive syndication deal with Redfin and Rocket Companies. Zillow launched its Preview program with several major brokerages. eXp Realty signed non-exclusive deals with Realtor.com, Homes.com and ComeHome.com. What started as a niche tactic is beginning to look more like a coordinated industry shift.
Supporters argue that staged rollouts give sellers more control and may help protect against the stigma of public price cuts. Compass sales manager Steve Salinas made this case in HousingWire, arguing that pre-market sequencing can build momentum and reduce the damage of a listing that accumulates visible days on market. Gary Keller, writing in the same publication, acknowledged that sellers have the right to choose how their home is marketed, but called for honest disclosure of the tradeoffs rather than a sales pitch dressed up as advice.
Critics go further. The Council of MLS warned in HousingWire in March 2026 that fragmenting inventory and withholding data like days on market and price history weakens competition, particularly for smaller brokerages. That data is not a minor technical detail. It is part of how buyers and sellers understand pricing, leverage, and market response. Hiding it does not make it less important. It may simply mean the largest firms still have access to it while everyone else operates with less visibility.
Austin broker Ed Neuhaus raised a sharper concern in HousingWire, arguing that when early visibility depends on which portal a buyer uses or which network their agent belongs to, the result can be unequal access even without discriminatory intent. He pointed to the Fair Housing Act, which under a 2015 Supreme Court ruling covers disparate impact. A practice does not need to be intentionally discriminatory to create a legal problem. It only needs to produce unequal outcomes. Whether courts will apply that standard to exclusive listing distribution remains an open question, but it is a serious one.
There is also a financial incentive worth naming directly. When a brokerage has more opportunity to keep visibility, leads, or transactions within its own ecosystem, that can create tension between what is most profitable for the firm and what best serves the seller. Sellers who believe they are getting independent advice about the best way to market their home may, in some cases, be getting a recommendation shaped partly by their brokerage's business model.
What we're seeing on the Peninsula
In Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont, San Mateo and surrounding cities, the overwhelming majority of homes in the $2M to $4M range are still going to the MLS. The exception is places like Atherton, where properties routinely change hands through private networks at prices that many buyers will never encounter.
Local data supports this. Of 83 closings in Redwood City in 2026, 8 showed zero days on market, suggesting off-market sales. In San Carlos, 6 out of 47 closings showed the same. That is roughly 10% in both cities, and likely still an undercount since some transactions never appear in the MLS at all. The larger point stands: about 90% of homes in these markets are still going through the open system.
We are also seeing a tale of two markets. Roughly half of homes are moving within a week, often with multiple offers and significant overbids. The other half are sitting longer, usually for a specific reason: a busy street, a home that needs updates, or a less desirable location. Those two realities call for different strategies, and collapsing them into one approach does not serve either type of seller or buyer especially well.
What this means if you're selling
The local data makes a strong case for broad exposure. Across all 2026 closings in Redwood City, the average sale-to-list price ratio was 105%. For single family homes, it was 107%. Competition is real, and broad exposure is what drives it.
A phased approach is not always wrong. Some sellers test the market quietly before going public, starting at a higher threshold to account for potential overbids and adjusting the price when the home goes broadly active. Done transparently, that can be a legitimate strategy. The key word is transparently. The questions worth asking your agent are straightforward: who will actually see the home during any pre-marketing phase, what is the specific benefit of that approach for your situation, and is this recommendation driven by your goals or by your brokerage's platform relationships?
What this means if you're buying
We see three realistic paths for buyers right now.
The first is going all-in on the open market, bidding aggressively and accepting that winning may require coming in significantly over asking.
The second is focusing on homes with more days on market, where there is less competition and more room to negotiate. There can be real opportunity in homes other buyers have overlooked, if you are willing to understand why they have been sitting.
The third is finding off-market opportunities before a home is listed. This is harder, but it is real. Recently, we identified a seller open to selling before going to market. We made an offer, stayed in consistent contact with the listing agent to make sure the deal stayed alive, and won by coming in slightly above the seller's threshold with a clean offer. No bidding war. No open house scramble. It required steady relationship work, not luck.
Our position
We believe open markets produce better outcomes for most buyers and sellers. Broad exposure creates real competition, and real competition tends to support stronger outcomes, especially for sellers. A world where homes trade primarily through private networks, where you need the right brokerage or the right platform just to see what is available, does not serve most buyers or sellers especially well. It tends to benefit the intermediaries who control the information.
That said, we are not telling clients to ignore off-market opportunities. They exist, they can create real value, and finding them requires consistent relationship work: outreach, agent-to-agent communication, knowing who has what coming and staying close to those conversations. That is part of how we operate.
The honest version of this debate is not about whether coming soon listings are good or bad. It is about who controls visibility, who benefits from that control, and whether your agent is working in your interest or their firm's. That is the question worth asking.
Sources
- Brooklee Han, "The ground just shifted: coming soon listings are taking over real estate," HousingWire, March 19, 2026
- Brooklee Han, "The 'Coming Soon' boom raises questions about value, transparency," HousingWire, March 23, 2026
- Brooklee Han, "CMLS warns pre marketing could fragment the housing market," HousingWire, March 26, 2026
- Ed Neuhaus, "Did the industry build a machine for reverse steering and call it seller choice?," HousingWire, March 26, 2026
- Gary Keller, "Why broad listing exposure still matters in real estate," HousingWire, February 26, 2026
- Steve Salinas, "The case for seller choice: Why exposure is a strategy and not a setting," HousingWire, March 27, 2026
- Brooklee Han, "eXp Realty adds coming soon syndication to Realtor.com, Homes.com, ComeHome.com," HousingWire, March 18, 2026
