Pacific Union International, California’s second-largest residential real estate broker by volume, is launching a new service this week that will give the public a peek at its “off-MLS listings,” meaning homes for sale that aren’t on a Multiple Listing Service.
Pacific Union estimates that 20 percent of its home sales in the Bay Area and 30 percent in Los Angeles last year closed without appearing on the MLS.
The San Francisco brokerage firm is breaking new ground by giving the public limited access to its own roster of off-MLS listings. Its new online service, called Private View, debuted in Los Angeles this week at https://pacificunionla.com/privateview. It will go live in the Bay Area this summer.
“As inventory goes down, off-MLS practices go up,” said Jim Harrison, president and CEO of MLSListings, the listing service for Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties.
He estimates that 21.6 percent of all homes sold in those counties in the first quarter did not hit the MLS before they closed. That compares with 12.6 percent in the first quarter of 2012. (Many agents enter a sale into the MLS after it has closed to help establish comparable prices for an area).