Coldwell Banker on Thursday launched a new coming soon feature for agent listings, giving Coldwell Banker agents an exclusive first look at the listings of their fellow agents.
The agent-to-agent tool, called “Exclusive Look,” isn’t a consumer-facing experience, like many other exclusive listing tools. The platform gives agents a chance to promote the needs of their buyers and sellers to see if there’s a match.
“In-office announcements or simple emails to colleagues alerting them of buyer needs or of a listing about to enter the market are no longer sufficient ways to pre-market properties,” NRT President and CEO Ryan Gorman said in a statement. “Our in-house product development team built a platform for affiliated agents to enhance and simplify their home marketing process. Ultimately, we are providing agents with applications that augment their ability to sell homes more quickly.”
Exclusive Look has been in the beta test phase with 10 Coldwell Banker NRT offices in the Boston metro area since June. NRT plans to launch the platform nationally to all company-owned offices by the end of 2019 and eventually to the entire Coldwell Banker affiliate network some time in 2020.
“As a perpetual leader in innovation, we have developed this proprietary software with our agents to help them promote listings as soon as their clients have agreed to market their listing with the company,” Kacie Ricker, national vice president of The Product Studio, said in a statement. “We are utilizing our findings of our beta rollout to help enhance and perfect the product offerings for our agents.”
“Exclusive Look enables our agents to market, share and access coming soon properties, as well as share buyer and seller wants with our vast national agent network,” Ricker added. “The power of this product for agents and clients is incredible.”
A number of companies have recently adopted similar strategies of withholding their listing from multiple listing services, but the National Association of Realtors is now considering curbing that tactic. NAR is exploring a new policy that would require agents who are members of a multiple listing service (MLS) to share listings with other MLS members, theoretically limiting the use of “exclusive” or so-called “pocket listing” marketing strategies.
Currently, the rule is still merely under consideration and has not yet become policy, with NAR currently seeking feedback from its membership. A NAR committee plans to further address the issue during the trade group’s conference in November.
