The housing market in Austin has been in demand for quite some time, but the recent surge over the past few months has left realtors scrambling to find property for their clients.

Some Austin realtors are concerned that pocket listings, which are sold by and marketed to an exclusive group of people, can be considered discrimination.

Remax realtor Hope Teal told KVUE News that the practice was unjust.

“Who is that exclusive group of buyers that they are offering this estate to? How did they determine which buyers they are going to market this listing to? Fair housing laws are in place for a reason, because property should be marketed to everyone despite any criteria for who that buyer is,” she said. 

According to KVUE, these private sales are not technically illegal and are normally done for privacy reasons.

The practice may violate fair housing laws, but brokers are using pocket listings to recruit new buyers with the promise of access to exclusive listings.

The National Association of Realtors established a clear cooperation policy to crack down on pocket listings in 2020 by requiring brokers to list homes on the multiple listing service within one business day of marketing a property so that everyone can have an opportunity to buy, but there are exceptions, according to KVUE.

According to the housing market website Redfin, whisper or pocket listings have increased nationally by 67% from November 2019 to March 2021.

A researcher told the website that the practice often discriminates against minority homebuyers.

“Pocket listings have the consequence of excluding most of the general public from access to a for-sale home advertised only through informal, network-based means,” a researcher told the website. “For white real estate agents, whose social networks were predominantly white, this meant that minority home buyers often never knew a pocket-listing home was available.”