The Standing Search: What Happens After You Post a Buyer Need on the Network
Every agent has a buyer who has seen everything. The saved search has been running for months, the new-listing emails arrive and get deleted, and the right house is not in them because it has not been listed yet. On Who’s Got Pockets that buyer becomes a buyer need: one post, five required fields, and from that moment the network runs a standing search for you on homes that are not in the MLS yet. Here is exactly what happens after you tap Publish.
The five fields
City, property type, bedrooms, price range and timeline. That is the whole required form. Everything else, square footage, lot size, must-haves, the area within the city, sits behind an optional Add more detail toggle, and the more of it you fill in the better the card reads to a listing agent. Write the need the way your buyer actually talks: “up to $2,700,000, San Clemente, Dana Point or San Juan Capistrano, 4 bedrooms, ready now.” Ranges and lists of cities match more homes than a single number does. Then your name, brokerage, DRE number and cell, which is how the agent holding the house reaches you.
Minute one: your card goes on the buyer board
Your need appears on the buyer board alongside the other 102 live ones, searchable by city, price and property type, visible to every signed-in agent with a DRE number on file. The board is read. Listing agents open it before they post a pocket to see who is already waiting, and the cards show your cell, so the call comes to you directly. No message request, no approval step, no platform in the middle.
Every day after: Match Alerts
This is the part you do not do. Each time an agent anywhere on the network posts a pre-market property, the network compares it against every live buyer need, yours included. City against your cities, type against your type, price against your range, bedrooms against your minimum. If it fits, you get a Match Alert email within minutes: the city, the property type, the price, the overview, and the posting agent’s name, brokerage and contact details, with one line asking you to reach out to them directly, one to one. Over the last 30 days the network sent 55 of those emails, each one a real pocket landing in the inbox of an agent whose buyer fit it.
It also catches the pockets you would never see on the board. An agent whose seller has signed a written MLS exclusion can post the property in a match-only lane: it is shown to no one and appears nowhere, but it is still checked against the buyer board, and if your buyer fits, the two of you are introduced privately. Your buyer need is the only way to be in the room for those.
What the listing agent sees before they post
On the pre-market form there is a live counter. As the agent types in the city, the type, the bedrooms and the price, it tells them how many buyer needs on the board already fit: “6 agents have buyers looking for something like this.” Your post is one of those six. Agents post more readily when they can see the buyers are already there, so your need does not just wait for pockets, it helps pull them onto the board.
Keep it honest, keep it current
When the buyer closes, take the need down. Your post has a one-tap link for it and the weekly digest reminds you. A board where every card is a live buyer is the reason listing agents trust it, and 42 needs were posted in the last 30 days alone, so the board renews itself month by month.
The whole routine
- Post the need with the widest honest range. Ninety seconds.
- Read the Match Alerts as they arrive and call the agent, one to one.
- Check the pocket board on Friday mornings from the Roundup for anything the filters would not catch.
- Take it down the day your buyer is in escrow.
The network has 2,600+ verified agents across 62 brokerages, and it is free, permanently. A standing search that runs on homes nobody else can see yet is the simplest thing on it to use.
