The news that Compass and the Northwest MLS had reached a settlement agreement that would lead to a new coming-soon listing status in Washington helps further cement coming-soon listings as a mainstream strategy in real estate.
NWMLS had been a lone holdout in the industry, with all other major MLSs and major search portals having moved to allow real estate agents to market properties before they’re broadly distributed in an Active status.
The change means that listings in many markets can be viewed via the MLS without displaying how long they’ve been marketed or any price change history that some believe tarnish listings in the eyes of buyers and their agents.
Supporters of the changes say the industry has entered a new era where sellers get more choice over how their homes are marketed after a nearly two-year battle over MLS policy.
“Some sellers want their home in front of every buyer the moment they hit go. Others want breathing room to fine-tune pricing,” wrote Joe Rath, head of industry relations at Rocket. “Still others want to customize their marketing plan around privacy, timing, or lifestyle needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. This new policy better reflects the choices sellers are already making—and gives brokers more flexibility to serve them.”
After Utah’s Wasatch Front MLS updated its rules in May to allow for its first-ever coming-soon listing status, NWMLS was the lone holdout among the largest multiple listing services in the country.
Shortly after the Wasatch Front MLS rolled out its coming-soon status, Lisa Hyte knew she had a client whose home would be perfect. The elderly seller was working on moving out of the home, and Hyte thought it would be best for her client and her listing if there were no showings until the client was fully moved out.
The new status allowed for Hyte to begin testing the market for the listing, one of the first in the state to be marketed as a coming-soon listing.
“To me it was a perfect scenario,” Hyte told Inman in May. “We literally are coming soon, and it will be next week.”
That resistance to coming-soon listings is part of what led Compass to view NWMLS as the most strict of any MLS in the nation, as the megabrokerage sought to take on what it called “organized real estate“: Zillow, MLSs and the National Association of Realtors.
There are still variables in the rules themselves around things like whether homes can be shown or open houses held while listings are in coming-soon status.
For instance, the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS), one of the nation’s largest, doesn’t allow for showings or open houses but does allow for coming-soon listings to be publicly marketed.
Other MLSs don’t allow for any public marketing in that status. Most pause days on market accumulation, and rules vary around whether coming-soon listings must be syndicated via portals like Zillow and Redfin.
Policies reflect the best available public information as of September 2026 and are subject to change. Agents should confirm current rules directly with their MLS.
In the NWMLS distribution area, homesellers can choose whether they want their coming-soon listings to be distributed via portals.
Even the portals themselves have been part of the effort to make coming-soon listings mainstream.
Rocket struck an agreement with Compass in February to display coming-soon listings and eventually private exclusives on Redfin.
Within three weeks, Zillow rolled out its own Zillow Preview coming-soon listing status. The portal now displays both a coming-soon status as well as a Zillow Preview status.
One more court case could dictate the next step in the evolution toward pre-marketed listings.
Zillow, Compass and Chicagoland’s MRED MLS are locked in a lawsuit involving Zillow’s enforcement of its policy that sought to block the rise of listings that were marketed without being shared in ways that allowed Zillow to distribute them.
MRED briefly moved to cut Zillow’s direct listing feed this spring, which led to over half of all listings in its coverage area disappearing from the platform.
The judge in the case agreed to temporarily restore Zillow’s access to the full MRED MLS data feed of inventory, pending further rulings in the case.
The judge is expected to rule on whether to grant a preliminary injunction request.
