- Pocket listings are not found online or in property guides.
- They are typically high-end listings whose owners are publicity-shy.
- But not every agent is a fan, believing the best results are achieved on market.
They are the super-expensive homes that only a few buyers are allowed to see. To qualify you have to be extremely rich or know the right people.
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Pocket listings – also known as quiet, off-market or “sleeve” listings due to the reference of being kept up an agent’s sleeve – are not found online or in property guides. They are kept in an agent’s private database, or pocket.
Precision Real Estate agent Di Balich, who sells luxury beach homes and coastal spreads in the rich-lister towns of Omaha and Matakana, called it “elite property tinder”.
“It’s really matching people with property,” she told OneRoof.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Paul Neshausen says "pocket listing" vendors often don’t want their neighbours coming through their home. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Balich has about eight properties she is selling quietly off-market. She said there were several reasons why vendors sell away from the public eye, with privacy and security topping the list.
“Most people at the upper end are strategic players in the market. They are selling property not necessarily for financial reasons but for lifestyle changes, or reshuffling of trusts – there’s a myriad of things,” she said.
Economic uncertainty has made some vendors wary; they believe a property can become “stale” if it’s left on the public market for too long, so turning their home into a pocket listing “de-risks a lot”, she said.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Paul Neshausen said pocket listings were “more common than might think" in his Auckland patch of St Heliers and Glendowie. He also has eight such listings, including one looking for $20 million.
“[The vendors] don’t want neighbours coming through their home. They have expensive things in their house. They want things controlled and managed.”
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Other buyers plan to go on the market on a specific date but remain open to an off-market sale if the right buyer is found before then, he said.
“They start off-market and test the waters, see how they go ... particularly for these high-value properties.”
Neshausen said some vendors were holding out for that “dream price” but off-market was not for everyone. “You are not going to get the exposure to the market,” he said. “If you need to sell for financial reasons – and there’s a bit of that at the moment – an on-market approach is better.
“That’s why [pocket listings] tend to be high-end homes in an exclusive area. They can command a premium and they don’t need to be ‘on the market’.”
In some areas, properties were sold via word of mouth, he said. “There’s a real network of lawyers, bankers, accountants and agents that tend to operate in the same circles.”
Most luxury homes sell the old-fashioned way. This Arts and Craft-style home on Portland Road, in Auckland's Remuera, sold "on-market" for $5.7m. Photo / Supplied
Luxury agent Michael Boulgaris isn't a fan of pocket listings. Photo / Supplied
Boulgaris Reality owner Michael Boulgaris said he was approached almost daily about “sleeve” listings, but he declined to use them.
He does not believe such listings are “practical”, saying there are “so many variables” involved.
Boulgaris, who sells luxury homes across Auckland, highlighted one of his recent sales, a $5.7m deal for a grand home on Portland Road, in Remuera. The property hit the open market in January and found a buyer by August. “That didn’t need to be off-market,” he told OneRoof.
Selling on-market meant prospective buyers were able to do initial checks, read the LIM report, and really consider the property, “so they are 50% there already” by the time he got involved, Boulgaris said.
He said there was “an element of fear” in the market due to the economic climate, potentially fanning pocket listing demand. In September, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research found the country’s deteriorating economic outlook followed reduced household spending and uncertainty in the jobs market.
A Real Estate Institute of New Zealand spokeswoman said there was no issue with agents selling properties privately to a database of buyers, but agents must still comply with the Code of Conduct. This includes the rule that the agent must act in the best interests of a client and act under the client’s instructions.
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