The number of homes or inventory of homes for sale is slowly increasing. Demand just isn’t as brisk as it was last year yet there are still not enough homes on the market. Almost 10% of the homes that are for sale are hidden because they are in the “temporarily not available to show” status instead of an active for sale status.
Often this is being done so that the listing agent has control over the listing rather than because the home needs an emergency repair or because there is something going on in the lives of the owners like an illness or a overnight guests or an event. [more information about TNAS]
This year and last the number of homes that are in the TNAS status goes up when the inventory is tighter and goes down when there are more homes on the market. All of a sudden real estate agents have all these reasons for getting listing paperwork signed but for holding off on making the listing active.
There is also a local real estate company that controls some of the inventory of homes for sale by only marketing them internally and keeping them as “in house” listings. There are some loop holes in our system that allow for this.
All I can say is if you own a home and want to sell it please put it on the market and expose it to all of the thousands of real estate agents in the metro area and thousands of buyers rather than allowing a real estate company to control the sale and to represent both parties. The real estate company comes out ahead on the deal but the buyers and sellers do not.
As the inventory of homes on the market continues to gradually grow we are seeing fewer homes in the temporarily not available to show status an hopefully going forward we will see fewer of them kept secret by real estate companies trying to keep them in house.
If your home is for sale consider having it put on the MLS so that the largest possible group of home buyers and sellers have a chance to buy it. If allowing people into your home is a problem limit the days or times that it can be viewed.
