A study released Monday found that home sellers who did not list their MLS assets in MLS have lost more than $1 billion in sales revenue over the past two years. Zillow. This study found that these losses were the deepest in the community of colour.
Zillow defined it as a ZIP code where the majority of households are led by black, Hispanic, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans.
In 2023 and 2024, Zillow discovered that sellers who chose not to list on MLS usually lose at nearly $5,000, selling 1.5% less property than those listed on MLS. In communities of color, the number jumped to 3.2%, more than double the 1.2% loss recorded in most white areas.
Zillow’s analysis showed a selling price difference of $9,851 for home sellers not listed on MLS in the majority of black neighborhoods, but in the majority Hispanic areas, that number jumped to $13,728.
“The data clearly shows that selling MLS will cost home sellers in areas where thousands of dollars have been lost,” said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, in a statement.
“These out-of-market lists not only harm sellers, they can limit exposure to potential buyers, and deepen inequalities that have probably existed in real estate for a long time. We must maintain transparency in the housing market and ensure that we don’t return to the dark ages of real estate.”
Additionally, Hispanic and black home sellers are frequently encouraged by MLS to list their assets, according to Zillow’s research data. Almost three-quarters of Hispanic and Black sellers remained only 24% of white sellers, reporting that agents recommended using private list networks.
As part of the discussion among those around us National Association of Realtors‘ (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy – Requires that you list your property on MLS within 24 hours – Zillow Vocal supporter of policy.
To carry out that survey, Zillow analyzed 2.72 million sales transactions and compared sales that personally listed homes sold on MLS. The company defined a sale that was personally listed as a sale that was sold personally and submitted to MLS only after the purchase agreement was settled.
“To classify these sales, Zillow has identified sales that were active for the maximum day and reported to have been pending or closed with buyers and sellers represented by agents from the same agent or brokerage,” the report states.
Additionally, Zillow said it parsed Off-MLS transactions that were not published to public MLSS after being listed personally. Additionally, we narrowed the subset of Off-MLS transactions to those who made previously recorded sales in MLS.
Zillow said that only this subset of Off-MLS transactions are included in the analysis. Excludes new construction homes, foreclosure sales, auction sales, non-arm length transactions, bank/corporate/government acquisitions, invalid QUIT claims, and outlier selling prices (below or above $10 million or above $10 million).
Zillow said it started with Zestimate home prices three months before the sale when determining the impact of how and where the home was listed. If the house was listed at this point, it was excluded from the study.
“To remove the impact of market-level price movements over the last three months, Zillow adjusted ZESTIME using ZILOW Home Value Index movements at the Zip Code level,” the study explained. “The ratio of the selling price to Zestimate-based expectations was then taken. The median value of this ratio was compared between list groups. On-MLS list compared to pocket lists and validated MLS lists.”
NAR will soon vote for a potential decommission of the CCP.
