Gary Keller is one of the most consequential figures in the history of residential real estate. In nearly five decades, few people have done more to educate, elevate and safeguard the well-being of the real estate professional. I say this as a 36-year veteran of this business and as someone who spent six years working within the Keller Williams organization. The knowledge I gained in his ecosystem has carried me through the rest of my career. Gary Keller has been an intellectual hero of mine for the entirety of my time in this industry.
It is from this place of deep respect that I share these thoughts. I do not intend to challenge Gary’s position, but rather to offer a perspective from someone who is now a Compass sales manager and who has lived on the ground in this business and sees this particular question differently.
The MLS is a tool, but not the only one
Gary is correct that the Multiple Listing Service creates broad exposure. The foundational economics are sound: more eyes on a listing create more competition, and more competition should produce a higher price. I have believed this for most of my career, and I do not abandon it lightly.
However, the traditional MLS-first argument fails to account for one reality: We do not live in a world where all else is equal. We live in a technology age where scarcity and exclusivity have become genuine value drivers in every category of high-end goods. The luxury market has long understood what the broader real estate conversation has been slow to accept. Exclusivity is not a limitation. In the right context, it is a marketing strategy.
The question is not whether the MLS is a powerful tool. It is. The question is whether it is always the right tool for every home, every seller and every market. To me, the answer to that question is plainly no.
The sequence of success
Gary suggests that “coming soon” or private listings may lead to a lack of full disclosure. I view them as the “sequence of success” used by the most sophisticated marketing machines in the world.
When a builder launches a new community, they do not simply open the doors on day one. The process begins with an interest list. Then comes signage to create curiosity. A sales trailer opens to provide a comprehensive look at the lifestyle being created. This is where buyers engage with detailed floor plans, architectural designs and physical samples of high-end finishes. It is a controlled environment where the story of the home is told through expert guidance before a single home has gone vertical.
Then come the strategic phase releases, which are carefully sequenced to create scarcity at each stage. Early buyers establish value, and each subsequent release is priced on the appreciation the previous phase generated. This is not “engineering consent.” It is a deliberate marketing model. Hollywood understands it too. A film is teased, trailered, and advertised in a deliberate sequence.
Gary Keller was the first person I ever heard say “success leaves clues.” I was working at Keller Williams when those words landed on me, and I have never forgotten them. The clues in this case are sitting in plain sight across some of the most successful marketing strategies in the world.
The corrosive effect of price adjustments
Gary frames the debate around exposure and price discovery. I want to focus on the single most corrosive event in any real estate transaction: a price adjustment.
Nothing destroys seller leverage or stigmatizes a listing more definitively than a public price adjustment. It is a corrosive event that eats away at the seller’s equity position and signals market weakness to every potential buyer simultaneously. The moment a home endures a price adjustment, it enters a new category in the buyer’s mind. It is no longer a desirable property priced right; it is a property that could not sell. Days on market accumulate. Negotiating leverage evaporates.
A fiduciary-minded agent must mitigate this risk. One of the most effective tools for doing so is the thoughtful use of pre-market positioning. This allows the agent to gain critical market intelligence and ensure the pricing strategy is correct. When the home hits the open market, it does so with momentum rather than questions.
Transparency is already the standard
Gary expresses concern that sales pitches are masquerading as disclosures. I disagree with the inference that sellers are making mistakes or do not understand the implications of their choices. In California, the safeguards Gary is calling for are already in place.
The California Association of Realtors has already incorporated explicit disclosure language around MLS exclusion in the CAR-approved listing agreements. In addition, my company provides a supplemental disclosure for three-phase marketing that must be acknowledged and signed by the seller to ensure absolute clarity.
Sellers today are not being misled; they are making intelligent, informed, strategic decisions based on the results they see in their own neighborhoods. To suggest they do not understand the trade-offs is to dismiss the intelligence of the consumer and the professionalism of the agent.
The Compass statistic: Reframing the conversation
When Gary references brokerages that have embraced private listing networks, I believe he is talking about my company, Compass. Gary warns that an “opaque market” hurts both ways, but the data suggests our market is anything but opaque.
Some 93% of our listings involve a cooperating broker. This is not a company that is marketing homes in a closed loop. The strategy is not about exclusion; it is about sequencing. We give a seller the opportunity to position the home correctly before it faces the full scrutiny of public syndication. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it then goes to market with full exposure. This is responsible stewardship of a seller’s equity, not a limitation of the market.
The war on equity: Public data aggregators
If the industry is going to have an honest conversation about what serves sellers best, we must include the role of public data portals and the misinformation they publish.
Consider the dominant online real estate aggregators. These platforms are oriented toward the buyer by design. Their public “guesstimates” carry enormous psychological weight but have been documented to be off by as much as 18% in either direction. If the estimate is low, the seller’s home is being publicly undervalued to every potential buyer before a showing even occurs.
Furthermore, when a buyer inquires about a listing through these sites, the inquiry is often routed to an agent who paid for the lead rather than the listing agent. The person most qualified to speak to the value of a home is the listing agent. Any system that obscures that relationship to fund a lead-generation business model is working against the seller’s interest.
Final thoughts
Gary calls for full disclosure, and I agree completely. But we must acknowledge that professional advice is not a “pitch.” It is the core duty of a fiduciary to explain the full landscape: the benefits of controlled positioning versus the risks of mass syndication and corrosive price adjustments.
A well-executed off-market sale, where the right buyer is found and allowed to make a confident decision, can and does result in above-market outcomes. The results speak for themselves. Our industry must stop fearing the private label and start embracing the strategic one.
Steve Salinas is the sales manager at Compass Real Estate.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com.