List of homes

PocketList

This Mill Valley home recently listed on PocketList before coming to market.

This Mill Valley home recently listed on PocketList before coming to...market.

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PocketList

Front of the home

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PocketList

The living room

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PocketList

Exposed wood ceilings

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PocketList

Floating staircase and fireplace

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PocketList

Built-in seating

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PocketList

Kitchen

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PocketList

Master bedroom

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PocketList

Sitting area in the master

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PocketList

Bathroom

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PocketList

Guest room

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PocketList

Another full bathroom

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PocketList

Media room

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PocketList

Office

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PocketList

Bonus room

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PocketList

View from patio

Off-market or “pocket” deals make up about a quarter of the San Francisco marketplace, according to some estimates, but these deals rely on the often time-intensive process of agents working their contacts to find these needles in a haystack, connecting just the right buyer and seller to make a sale. But a new service, PocketList, hopes to make those connections much more “efficient and intuitive than it is today, ” according to CEO Tom MacLeod.

“PocketList aspires to organize and develop the private marketplace with tools and services. Through our private marketplace, qualified buyers confidentially browse private home listings and connect with those that fit their target match, ” MacLeod said. “We envision a more efficient marketplace where qualified buyers stand out from the crowd and gain priority with home sellers and their agents.”

The service is free for buyers, sellers and agents, but access is only granted to buyers who qualify during a screening process. The three-step process “ensure buyers are qualified to purchase a home that is marketed with us, ” explained MacLeod. PocketList assesses buyers’ employment (and employment history), timeline and mortgage qualification to determine their ability to buy a home marketed in PocketList. If all the elements are in line, they gain access. If not, they are connected with mortgage lenders or other services to help improve their stats.

The appeal to buyers in this crazed marketplace is obvious: access to homes that not everyone gets to see. But why would privacy-seeking sellers who might be interested in making an off-market deal without the attention and publicity of the MLS then be interested in publicizing their homes on PocketList? According to MacLeod, the service largely appeals to sellers looking to make an off-market deal without an agent and/or those looking to test demand before they go out to the wider marketplace.

The Mill Valley home in the gallery above is a perfect example of the latter. The seller “was looking for a very focused marketing channel for a pre-MLS property. Her goal was to create as much visibility and demand in the pre-marketing phase prior to taking her listing to the MLS, ” according to MacLeod.

Right now, the service is only available to Bay Area buyers and sellers, but MacLeod sees no reason why the model couldn’t work in other locales as well. He also believes it doesn’t require the supercharged marketplace we see today in order to make sense, especially for sellers. “Most agents think pocket listings are more valuable or strategic in down markets, ” he said. “When you put your home on the public market, each day that goes by is added up in the dreaded ‘days on market’ counter. Properties that do not sell immediately may be considered ‘stale, ’ incorrectly priced or undesirable. For this reason, the private market channel is especially attractive in down markets.”