How Pocket Listings Became the Most Expensive Mistake a Silicon Valley Home Seller Can Make
Feb 17, 2026
Market Wise column for the Bay Area News Group and its flagships, the Mercury News, and The East Bay Times
By Pat Kapowich
Titled: Why do sellers limit their sale price with an off-market pocket listing?
By Pat Kapowich | Pat@SiliconValleyBroker.com | Marketwise
Originally Published: February 3, 2024 at 4:00 AM PST
Question: Pat, I have concerns about a real estate practice called dual agency and its potential impact on home sale prices. Years ago, you wrote about “pocket listings” — private sales within a single realty firm without total market exposure. Ten years ago, this happened to my parents’ neighbor, whose home sold for an estimated $40,000 to $50,000 below market value to a buyer represented by the same firm.
Recently, my parents received a solicitation from the same realty firm touting “We Have Buyers” and promising a quick sale. It is a postcard. So, through dual-agency representation, this solicitation translates to another off-market, under-value home sale happening solely within that company. Is that a suitable interpretation?
Answer: Yes, you are correct. In all fairness, well-informed home sellers might elect a home sale without the benefit of the marketplace. Privacy has its price. For example, an occupant might be ill or famous. There are legitimate reasons. The result is discouraging heavy foot traffic. However, these are rare circumstances. Most home sellers would not have sold in-house or off the multiple listing service (aka off-MLS) if they knew it would cost them tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Off-MLS listings, aka “pocket listings,” “in-house listings,” and “whisper listings,” have been the topic of many of my columns. I reached back in time for you. Here is an excerpt from one of my 2014 Marketwise columns on the off-MLS epidemic (that ran twice) for the Bay Area News Group’s The Mercury News and East Bay Times:
“In Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley technology, the local Multiple Listing Service has been painstakingly dredging up the statistical rising waves of listings that were withheld from the 15,000 members of the MLS. In 2012, there were 2,700 off-MLS residential transactions that had a median selling price of $64,00,0, lower than MLS sales. In 2013, the off-MLS wave grew to a chart-topping 3,60,0 which accounted for a $105,000 lower median selling price compared to MLS sales.
It’s rogue listing agents, not rogue waves, that cause these massive losses. Real estate attorneys have always had cases of sellers selling low and “in-house” but now the “harbor police” are keeping an eye on this issue as well. Like a tsunami, indiscernible on the surface, once the massive wave of litigation strikes, it will be “all hands on deck” to defend listing agents selling off-MLS while practicing dual agency because their navigation on the surface is usually — indefensible.” (The 2014 column was so talked about it was published twice on April 6 and October 26.)
That example was in Santa Clara County (aka Santa Clara Valley/Silicon Valley), just one of 58 California counties. According to the California Association of Realtors, in December 2012 the median price of an existing detached single-family home in the San Francisco Bay Area was $513,090. In December 2024, it was $1,182,000. Present-day off-MLS losses are substantial.
It gets worse. Many agents misdirect older adults into an off-MLS, in-house, dual-agency home sale. The resulting loss in net proceeds could be deemed financial elder abuse. As well it should be.
📰 Read more Market Wise columns in The Mercury News archive: mercurynews.com/author/pat-kapowich/
Pat Kapowich is the real estate advice columnist for The Mercury News, East Bay Times, and dozens of Bay Area News Group newspapers across the San Francisco Bay Area — published since the 1990s. A career-long consumer protection advocate, Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager, and Certified Trust and Probate Specialist, Pat provides full-service real estate representation from his hometown of Sunnyvale, California.
Questions about buying or selling? Contact Pat today. 📞 408-245-7700 | ✉️ Pat@SiliconValleyBroker.com | 🌐 SiliconValleyBroker.com Broker# 00979413
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