Phantom Listings

[Michael B.]

I'm not a RE agent, and never have been one. Here's something that happened last week. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this, especially from agents.

About 2 months ago a house came on the market in a neighborhood that I know pretty well. They're newer homes (subdivision built in 2006-2008) and right now going for between $110k and $130k. The home was a foreclosure (BofA) priced at $62,900. I immediately called my agent to see it. Lots of repairs required, but it was a steal at $62,900. I put in a full price offer on the 2nd day of the listing.

But obviously lots of people liked this house. They had 9 offers in the first 3 days. They did a couple rounds of 'Best and Final' offers. I dropped out when it became obvious what was happening. The winning bidder got the house at $85,000. In my opinion the deal when from Great deal --> Good Deal --> OK deal in that time. It went pending in the MLS and was pulled from Zillow and Trulia at this point.

Last week I was trolling Trulia and the house was back, same listing agent, again priced at $62,900. It wasn't in the MLS so I called my Realtor to see what was happening. When I told him about the trulia listing his response was typically blunt: Not for sale. Phantom listing. Bait and Switch. Call 'em and they'll divert you to other properties. F***ing Bottom feeders. (My agent never mastered the art of sales chatter. Actually sometimes it seems he barely mastered the art of the spoken word. But he has a good eye for real estate and is very thorough in finding ways to get the deal done.)

So I called the listing agent and of course the property just went under contract, but he had a couple of others in that price range ...

Just wondered how common this is. There are lots of properties listed by agents in Zillow and Trulia that never make it to the MLS. How many are really "phantom listings", designed to get calls. Also I'd be interested in how you see the ethics pushing a property that's not really for sale to make the phone ring.