This may be one of the best buyer markets I’ve ever seen, and almost no one is talking about it.
There’s something happening in residential real estate right now that not too many people seem willing to say out loud.
Private listings.
Off-market deals kept away from the MLS and shown only to a select group of buyers. A lot of agents are pushing this concept onto generally unsuspecting sellers with the pitch of exclusivity and sophistication.
A curated experience. A sense of exclusivity. A shortcut through the noise.
If the goal is to get the highest price, why would you limit who gets to see it?
In practice, this is a quiet transfer of wealth from the seller to everyone else at the table. The real estate agent (on both sides of the deal), the attorneys, the title company, the lenders. They all get paid at the table.
But the buyer could be the biggest winner.
A friend called me last week with some news. He wanted to be done with the sale of his apartment and move on with his life. He had tried selling it, but when he didn’t get his price, he rented it out. After a few years of this, he didn’t want to be a landlord any longer. The process had exhausted him, so when a broker came to him with an off-market offer, he accepted, signed a contract quickly, and moved on.
He left about $2 million on the table.
Not because the market wouldn’t pay it. Because the market never got the chance.
His home, by current market data, might have commanded $10 million in an open and competitive sale. He walked away with $8 million.
Lucky buyer.
I have another acquaintance right now in the middle of the same calculation, except the number is closer to $32 million. He listed his property off-market with an agent who was selling the “benefits” of a private listing.
That strategy could cost him. Nine months later, still with no buyer in sight, he’s running out of time. If he decides to sell (and now needs to sell fast), he’ll have to take a $5 million haircut.
Lucky buyer, if a deal gets done.
I know way too many of these stories.
Here’s what actually happens in a private listing…..
The agent keeps the deal inside their own network, which most often means they represent both buyer and seller. Both sides of the commission, one transaction. Their incentive to drive the highest possible price for the seller is structurally compromised from the moment they decide to keep it quiet.
You cannot maximize price while minimizing exposure. The two goals conflict.
The buyer, meanwhile, walks into a deal with no competition. No other offers. No market pressure. They are negotiating against a seller who doesn’t know what they don’t know, which is that there are people out there willing to pay more, people who simply were never called.
The seller gets a clean, fast process. The agent gets a double commission.
And the buyer gets a discount that the open market would never have offered them.
Somebody wins in this scenario, and it is almost never the seller.
Pricing is a discovery process. It requires exposure, competition, and the friction of multiple parties wanting the same thing at the same time. Take that away and you don’t get a cleaner transaction, you get an incomplete one. A price that reflects the opinion of a small, controlled room rather than the actual market. Speed and convenience have value, but rarely $2 million worth.
The data on this is not subtle. An honest agent will tell you that properties marketed openly and competitively consistently outperform off-market transactions.
The sellers who do best are the ones who let the market speak before they decide what something is worth.
For buyers, however, this is the opening. In a market where more inventory is being quietly withheld from broad exposure, the advantage shifts to those who can access it. If you can get into these off-market conversations, you are often negotiating in a vacuum, without the pressure of competing bids, and sometimes with a seller who is prioritizing speed, discretion, or simplicity over price.
That gap between what a property is worth and what a seller will accept is where the opportunity now lives.
Side Bar:
Even though some of the greatest artists have passed on, thanks to technology, we continue discovering new works. One of my favorites is a studio album that was a previously unreleased. It was recorded on March 8, 1959, at Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack, NJ studio. The Jazz Messengers with Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone. Definitely worth a listen.
Let’s do this!
Shaun