Ensuring trust in the system of rules that govern the world is one of the most important – if not the most important – things a governing body is charged with, and one of the most difficult. 

Former State Police Col. Kerry Gilpin found this out the hard way when she was suddenly thrust into the agency’s top job as her then-superior, Col. Richard McKeon, and his deputy resigned amid charges McKeon had ordered an embarrassing statement made by a judge’s daughter removed from the report of her arrest on drug charges.   

Gilpin’s two-year tenure was marked by fallout from another scandal that saw one of the State Police’s seven troops disbanded amid accusations its members were robbing the public blind by filing false overtime claims. Partly due to Gilpin’s low-profile leadership style and partly due to the steady drip of revelations as the overtime scandal unfolded, trust in the State Police is at its lowest ebb in some time. 

Following Gilpin’s resignation days ago, her successor, Col. Christopher S. Mason, now faces the same challenge she grappled with. This paper sincerely hopes Mason will finish the housecleaning Gilpin started, and is able to find a way to rebuild the public’s faith in what should be the state’s best law enforcement agency. 

Pocket listings like these are anti-competitive and not only go against the sprit of cooperation that makes the real estate market run, but also threaten buyers’, sellers’ and agents’ trust in the real estate market.

In contrast to successive State Police leadership teams, the National Association of Realtors’ board moved last week to nip an incipient problem in the bud, and they did so with admirable fairness and flexibility. 

“Pocket listings” – a practice where a real estate agent declines to list a property for sale on their local multiple listings service and instead markets it through private channels – have been on the rise as of late.  

There are valid reasons an agent might keep a home sale private at the express request of the seller, and in these cases an agent is duty-bound to market the listing quietly. But some agents in recent years took the idea of a pocket listing to the next level using powerful, modern communication tools like private Facebook groups or email listservs to market homes privately.  

They may be motivated by a desire to avoid splitting the commission with a buyer’s agent. They may be trying to pre-market a property in the slower winter months. Or they may simply be trying to limit access to their market to agents who already operate there.  

Pocket listings like these are anti-competitive and not only go against the sprit of cooperation that makes the real estate market run, but also threaten buyers’, sellers’ and agents’ trust in the real estate market. If too many buyers thought they weren’t getting the whole picture – and academic research confirms people of color and immigrants are more likely to get excluded from pocket listings, showing how easy this kind of exclusion is – the market could easily become dominated by hucksters, or worse. 

This paper hopes the new NAR pocket listing policy, and that already in place at MLS PIN, helps keep the residential real estate market the fair and transparent place we all need it to be. 

Trust in the Rules is a Terrible Thing to Lose

by Banker & Tradesman time to read: 2 min
0