EXp Tech Chief: The off-MLS debate keeps leaving buyers out of the equation

The person bringing the money to the transaction keeps getting left out of the conversation outside the MLS. That should bother everyone.

I’ve spent my career on both sides of the mirror: as CEO of Zoocasa, where I built the portal that shows people’s homes, and now as CTO of eXp Realty, where I run the brokerage that represents the people who buy and sell them. I have been following the current debate about marketing outside of the MLS with particular interest. And a growing concern.

Not all ‘pre-marketing’ is problematic

Here’s what I have to admit up front: much of what’s labeled as “pre-marketing” is completely legitimate:

• A coming-soon campaign that raises awareness
• Time to make repairs before the photos are taken
• Organize a good launch instead of fumbling a live offer
• An office conversation in which buyers are looking for what will come on the market

All this is beyond expectations and in the interest of homeowners. Good agents have always prepared a property and timed its debut, and they should. Sellers have every right to present their home in the best light.

If the question was simply whether sellers should be able to market thoughtfully, there would be no debate. We would all say yes.

But that is no longer the question. Somewhere along the way, the conversation quietly shifted from “How can we market homes well?” to “Should there be private marketplaces that the rest of the market, and the buying public, cannot easily access?” Those are very different questions.

The arguments filling the trade press lately, no matter how well constructed, are largely in service of the second, while sounding like the first.

That brings me back to the buyer

The buyer is the person who brings the money to the transaction. Every dollar that makes a deal comes from their side of the table. You would think that in a debate about how homes are marketed, the buyer’s ability to make an informed decision would be at the center of the discussion. Instead, it has been almost entirely absent.

Consider what a buyer actually needs to make a good offer on the largest purchase of their life.

• Has this property been mentioned before? When? At what prices?
• Was it withdrawn and offered again to reset the clock?
• How long has it actually been available?

These are not trivial matters. They are the facts and data that tell a buyer whether a price is reasonable, where he or she has room to negotiate and whether a ‘new’ offer is actually new. That information is important for every offer.

This is the part of the current debate that should give everyone pause. In one of the recent opinion pieces As we defended off-portal marketing, the objection that buyers would see in market and price history was clearly stated: it “arms them against the seller.”

Read that again.

The inconvenience isn’t really in the business model of a particular portal. It’s that buyers have information at all.

I understand the frustration with portals. I built one and competed for traffic and attention. They are for-profit companies, not neutral arbiters, and the criticism that they generate revenue from listings and forwarding leads is valid.

However, you can’t answer “this portal is not perfectly transparent” with “so let’s build a marketplace that is transparent to almost no one.” The solution to imperfect openness is not enclosure.

That’s my real concern when it comes to private, broker-managed inventory listings that are marketed and sometimes traded within the walls of one company. When a house can be sold to a curated audience before the broader market ever sees it, several things happen at once.

Buyers outside that network never get a fair chance. Sellers may never know what the full market would have paid. And the transaction, the price, the terms, the real story never makes it into the shared record that appraisers, lenders, and the next buyer down the street all depend on.

Hidden deals don’t just hurt one buyer. They quietly degrade the data that the entire market uses to know what something is worth.

How the market works

A marketplace works because both parties can see clearly enough to meet at a fair price. Tilt the information badly to one side, and it is no longer a marketplace. It’s closer to a private club with a PR budget.

I’m not saying that sellers should give anything away, or that real estate agents should give up the craft of marketing a home. I’m advocating a simple principle that I think most people in this industry actually share when it’s stated directly: the person bringing the money deserves to see the same basic facts about a house that the people selling it already know.

So as the op-eds keep coming, I’d ask anyone who reads them to notice who keeps being left out of the conversation. The seller’s case is made loud and good. The buyer’s voice is hardly heard.

Someone should listen. So I will.

Carrie Lysenko is Chief Technology Officer of eXp Realty and former CEO of Zoocasa. You can contact her at LinkedIn And Instagram.