Two Ways to Pre-Market a Home, and Who Sees Each One
Since March there have been two mainstream ways to market a home before it goes active, and they reach two completely different audiences. Knowing which is which is now part of the listing conversation, because sellers are reading about both.
Route one: show it to buyers early
This is the Zillow Preview model. An agent at a participating brokerage puts the home on Zillow and Trulia, clearly labeled as pre-market, before it is active. Buyers can search it, save it, share it, and contact the listing agent, per Zillow’s launch announcement. The listing also appears on the brokerage’s and agent’s own sites.
Who sees it: the public. Zillow cites 235 million average monthly unique users across its apps and sites in the HomeServices partnership release. That is enormous reach, and it comes with the trade the seller should understand: the home is now public. Whatever the seller wanted to keep quiet, the address, the fact of the sale, the price expectation, is no longer quiet.
Who can use it: agents at participating brokerages. Five launched with it and more than two dozen joined within two weeks, according to Real Estate News. If your brokerage is not on that list, this route is not on your menu today.
Route two: show it to agents early
This is the private-network model. Compass describes its version, Private Exclusives, as showcasing a home to 340,000 agents across its network before the public launch, while the seller tests price and gathers feedback, per Compass. The public does not see the home. Agents do, and they bring the buyers they already have.
Who sees it: licensed agents, and through them, pre-qualified buyers who are actively looking. No days-on-market counter, no public price history, no neighbors refreshing the page.
Who can use it: historically, agents at the brokerage that owns the network. Every national brand built some version of this. Independents did not get one, which is the gap this network fills.
Reading the two side by side
| Consumer preview | Agent network | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees the home | Everyone on the portal | Licensed agents only |
| Address and price | Public | Behind the wall |
| Best for | Maximum early exposure | Discreet price testing, quiet sellers, agent-to-agent matching |
| Who can offer it | Participating brokerages | Members of the network |
Neither route is the wrong one. They answer different seller questions. A seller who wants every eyeball on day one wants route one. A seller who wants to test the number with real buyers before the neighborhood knows wants route two. Plenty of listings will do both in sequence, and about 94 percent of homes that start private end up on the MLS anyway, per Compass testimony reported by Inman.
Route two, for everyone
Who’s Got Pockets is route two without the brokerage requirement. Post a pre-market property and the city and property type show publicly. Address, price, beds, baths, and photos are visible only to licensed agents who have joined the network, and Match Alerts emails every agent whose posted buyer need fits. Post a buyer need and you are the first to know the moment something matches.
Right now the network is carrying 41 pre-market and coming-soon properties and 85 live buyer needs across Orange County, all typed in by licensed agents. Membership is free, permanently, and no one here takes a piece of your deal.
The next time a seller asks about Zillow Preview, you can explain both routes, and you can offer one of them the same afternoon.
