REinventing MLS
Selling a home is stressful enough. Add a difficult divorce, four messy, busy teenage children, and the challenge of preparing a house for sale, and the process can quickly become overwhelming. For one Illinois mother, MRED’s Private Listing Status provided something she desperately needed: time.
Working with her real estate agent, the homeowner placed her home in Private Listing Status while preparing for a potential sale. The family needed a few weeks to get the house ready for photographs, evaluate its market value, and determine the best path forward.
“With four kids, it was hard enough trying to get the house ready,” she explained. “It certainly gave me that extra buffer of time that I needed.” Without that flexibility, she would have been forced to choose between two bad options: put the house on the market before it was ready or delay the process entirely.
The Private Listing Status also gave her more time to search for a replacement home while navigating the divorce. “Even with the time buffer the Private Listing status gave me, I still felt a ton of pressure to buy more quickly than I would have liked,” she said. “Without it, I am not sure I would have been able to find a home for my family in time.”
Ultimately, her husband decided to buy out her interest in the property at a mutually agreed-upon value informed by appraisals, eliminating the need for a traditional sale. The Private Listing Status allowed him to understand the true value of the home by getting feedback from fellow MRED agents, which resulted in a more equitable divorce settlement.
For this family, the Private Listing Status wasn’t about avoiding the open market. It was about having the flexibility to make thoughtful decisions during an extraordinarily challenging time.
Sometimes the most valuable thing an MLS can provide is a little breathing room for consumers.
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