In the battle to provide listing agents with options to pre-market listings, Redfin is fine-tuning the way it displays coming-soon and other exclusive listings on its platform.
The portal announced a major partnership in February that entails displaying coming-soon and exclusive listings from agents at Compass International Holdings.
Now, it has announced its plans to showcase listings that are exclusive to the portal and not available on competing search platforms. The company is calling the upcoming display Redfin Early Access.
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The program is the latest development in the ongoing debate over how, when and where listings are displayed — and it signals that the trend of multiple listing services and search portals securing their own sources of exclusive inventory is accelerating.
“A lot of homeowners want to sell, but are not ready to commit to full exposure,” Redfin chief of real estate services Jason Aleem said in a statement Monday. “Giving sellers more control over how they enter the market gives them more confidence.”
Redfin Early Access is the tool through which the portal will differentiate pre-marketed listings from agents at Redfin and Compass brands from the coming-soon listings that it displays from agents at every other brokerage.
After Redfin announced the partnership with Compass earlier this year, coming-soon listings began to be displayed in markets that allowed for that type of pre-market syndication. Those should still be displayed.
Redfin Early Access listings will appear when website visitors use the Coming Soon filter on the platform. They’ll also receive prioritization over other coming-soon listings via elements such as a black emblem on the search map and an “Early Access” tag on the listing itself.
A separate filter will launch in the future that will allow users to filter for Redfin Early Access listings from Redfin and Compass agents, the company confirmed to Inman.
The filter won’t include Compass Private Exclusives at this time, the company told Inman.
“Redfin Early Access lets sellers test the market before going all-in, while giving buyers a first look at homes they won’t find on other major sites,” Aleem said. “That’s good for sellers, good for buyers and good for a housing market that desperately needs more inventory.”
The listings will include unique icons on Redfin’s display to differentiate them from standard listings on the platform.
Redfin Early Access listings don’t accrue days on market or publicly display price history, the company said. That allows listing agents to test pricing on behalf of their clients, Redfin added.
Along with the announcement, the company said that it had conducted a survey that found sellers were in favor of the pre-marketed listings option now available on Redfin.
The survey found that 83 percent of prospective homesellers are interested in pre-marketing their homes. That survey was conducted in April and included responses from 1,000 U.S. homeowners.
Redfin has said that its research and surveys have shown that providing more options for sellers to go to market — including pre-marketed listings — could boost for-sale inventory.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect the status of coming-soon listing syndication in three markets.
