If you've been wondering whether selling your home through a private network — rather than listing it on the MLS for the whole world to see — is actually a smart move, a brand-new independent study just gave sellers a compelling answer: on average, it is.
Darren Hayunga, a professor at the University of Georgia's business school, analyzed two decades of home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to answer this very question. What he found may change how you think about your sale strategy.
The headline number: homes sold off the MLS fetched 1.7% more than comparable homes marketed publicly through the MLS.
What Is a Private Listing Network, Exactly?
A private listing — sometimes called a pocket listing or private exclusive — is a home that's marketed selectively to a curated pool of qualified buyers, rather than being immediately broadcast to every public home search platform like Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com.
At Compass, this means your home can be showcased to our network of serious buyers and agents first — giving you the opportunity to test pricing, generate early interest, and create a sense of exclusivity — before (or instead of) hitting the open market.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
- Your home is marketed to serious, pre-qualified buyers
- No public price reductions or "days on market" counter working against you
- Opportunity to gauge demand and fine-tune pricing before going wide
- More control over who walks through your door and when
- Reduced disruption to your daily life during the sale process
Why Does Private Marketing Lead to a Higher Price?
You might expect that more exposure means more competition, which means a higher price. That's the conventional wisdom — and it's what MLS advocates have long argued. But the data tells a more nuanced story.
According to Professor Hayunga, the premium comes from a seller's ability to hold firm on price. When a home sits publicly on the MLS, there's a well-known negotiation dynamic at play: buyers lowball, price reductions signal weakness, and the longer a home sits, the more leverage shifts to the buyer.
As Hayunga put it: "If this wasn't good for the seller, no one's holding a musket to their head, and so they don't have to do it."
With a private listing, that dynamic changes. Buyers engaged through an agent's private network are often more serious and move with less hesitation — meaning you're less likely to face the slow grind of negotiation that chips away at your bottom line.
The "Testing the Market" Advantage
One of the biggest benefits of going private first is the ability to price-test without consequence. On the public MLS, a price reduction is permanent and visible to everyone — it signals to buyers that your home is overpriced or struggling, and it gives them ammunition to negotiate harder.
With a private network approach, you can quietly adjust your price and strategy based on real buyer feedback — before your listing ever hits Zillow. That means when you do go public (if you choose to), your pricing is sharp, your presentation is polished, and you're not starting the clock on days-on-market from a place of uncertainty.
What About the Clear Cooperation Policy?
If you've done some research on this topic, you may have come across the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP) — a rule the National Association of Realtors introduced in 2020 that initially required agents to submit listings to the MLS within 24 hours of marketing them publicly.
The Hayunga study found that this policy essentially eliminated the pricing premium for private sellers — because 24 hours simply wasn't enough time to meaningfully test the market and build momentum. Importantly though, it didn't stop sellers from choosing private listings. In fact, by 2022, pocket listings hit their highest share of the Dallas-Fort Worth market in the entire 20-year dataset.
Here's the good news: NAR substantially rolled back the CCP in 2025, giving local MLSes flexibility to allow longer private marketing windows again. That means the strategic advantage of going private first is back on the table — and the timing for sellers couldn't be better.
Is a Private Sale Right for You?
Private listings aren't a one-size-fits-all solution. But they tend to be especially powerful for:
- Sellers who value privacy and discretion during the sale process
- Homeowners uncertain about their pricing and wanting to test demand first
- Sellers in neighborhoods where buyer demand already outpaces supply
- Anyone who wants to avoid the stress of open houses and constant showings
- Sellers who want to move on their own timeline, not the market's
Even Professor Hayunga — the researcher who wrote the study — said he'd choose a pocket listing for his own home. "On average, it's beneficial," he said. When the person who spent years studying the data says they'd do it themselves, that's worth paying attention to.
The Bottom Line for Sellers
The debate over private listings has gone on for years, with each side citing their own data. What makes this study different is its independence: Professor Hayunga had no stake in the outcome. His methodology was rigorous — comparing only homes with truly equivalent characteristics — and his conclusions are clear.
Selling off the MLS, done correctly and with the right agent and network, can mean more money in your pocket, less stress during the process, and more control over one of the biggest financial transactions of your life.
The key phrase there is done correctly — and that's where having an experienced agent with access to a powerful private buyer network makes all the difference.
Curious Whether a Private Listing Is Right for Your Home?
Let's have a no-pressure conversation about your goals and whether a private network approach makes sense for your situation. I'd love to walk you through what the process would look like for your specific home.
Call or text me at 773.377.9200 Or email me at [email protected].
No obligation. Completely confidential. I'm here to help you make the best decision for your family — whatever that looks like.
