How To Try Selling Your Minneapolis Duplex And Still Change Your Mind

Now and then a Minneapolis or St Paul duplex owner who’s thinking about selling but not quite committed to it yet will tell me if I brought them a buyer, they would be happy to show the property if I brought a buyer.

In the first decade and more of my real estate career, it was not an uncommon practice for Realtors to have “pocket listings” that never appeared on the MLS, and were sold either to an agent’s own buyers, or buyers working with an agent from another company.

In some instances, those sales resulted in a seller getting more money than they may have by exposing it to more buyers by listing it on the MLS. In some cases it resulted in sellers getting less money. And to some sellers it just didn’t matter because selling it off market reduced inconveniences to tenants and/or themselves.

This actually became a somewhat popular way to sell properties. In fact, a Realtor at one brokerage even started a list of off-market properties he shared with agents from other companies. They in turn could show those properties to their buyers as well as add any pocket listings they may have themselves.

Then the government decided this may not be in the consumer’s best interest – either the buyer or the seller. Buyer’s may overpay, sellers may not get enough for their property, and so forth.

So they put restrictions on the practice. Now, Realtors can still have pocket listings that are withheld from the MLS. However, agents may now only market or share information about them with agents who have the same broker. In other words, most of the time, that’s agents in their office.

At first this sounded disastrous. Over time, however, it’s come to be a really great tool for my sellers and buyers.

Our market center has several ways to learn about the opportunity. We have a shared whiteboard, a Google document available to all Keller Williams Realty Integrity – Edina agents, and can share information about the withheld listing within our office.

An off-market listing gives my sellers an opportunity to test the list price on their duplex in a way that won’t taint any future MLS listing. For example, if the seller and I have a difference of opinion on value, we can try it at a price among the agents and their clients in my office. Sometimes, sellers will want to ask more before it’s on the market in exchange for foregoing the opportunity to sell in multiple offers.

In turn, buyers may see this as an opportunity to find a property before it hits the market and avoid having to fight off other bidders.

Often, the price is higher; so the seller If there isn’t any interest, then we can reposition it before it goes on the MLS. And if the property eventually is listed on the MLS, there will be no public history for people to know what it was priced at in the past.

It’s a great way to help Minneapolis and St Paul duplex owners to test the market without making it more difficult to sell later on.

If you’d like to know how you can try selling your duplex without it going on the MLS, give me a call. I’d be happy to share more about the opportunity.