Can You Post a Coming Soon Listing on Social Media?
Sometimes, but the post starts a clock. Under NAR’s Clear Cooperation policy, a social media post is public marketing, and once you publicly market a listing it has to be in the MLS within one business day. NAR’s 2025 Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy added “delayed marketing” exempt listings, and those must not be publicly marketed at all, which means no posts. Your local MLS sets the exact rules, so check them before you post a teaser.
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▼Why Coming Soon Posts Cause Problems
The coming-soon teaser is one of the most natural posts in real estate. You signed the listing agreement, the photographer is booked, the house is going to look great. A “Something big is coming to Maple Street” Reel builds buzz before the listing goes live.
It also counts as marketing the listing to the public, and that’s the step Clear Cooperation cares about. A lot of agents think of a teaser as “not really marketing” because there’s no price, no address or no showing schedule. The MLS may not see it that way. If people can tell which house it is, or if the point of the post is to generate interest in a specific property, assume it’s public marketing.
What Clear Cooperation Requires
Clear Cooperation is NAR’s MLS policy for listings that are marketed to the public. The core requirement:
- Once you publicly market a listing, you have one business day to submit it to the MLS for cooperation with other MLS participants.
A social media post is public marketing. So is a yard sign, a public website listing, an email blast to people outside your brokerage, or a flyer. The format doesn’t matter. If you’re promoting a specific property to the public, the clock starts.
Some practical consequences:
- A Friday evening teaser puts the listing on a short timeline. Count business days according to your MLS’s rules, and don’t post a teaser you can’t follow up on.
- A teaser with no address can still be public marketing. If the photos, the street name or the neighborhood make it identifiable, assume the MLS will treat it as marketing that property.
- Deleting the post doesn’t undo it. If people saw it, it happened.
The 2025 Change: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers
In 2025, NAR added its Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy. One piece of it matters a lot for social media: delayed-marketing exempt listings.
With this option, a seller can choose to have the listing filed with the MLS but delay public marketing for a period. During that delay, the listing must not be publicly marketed. For your social pages, that means:
- No coming-soon posts. Not a teaser, not a “guess the house” Reel, not a blurred photo.
- No “sneak peek” Stories. Stories disappear in a day, but they’re still public marketing.
- No posts in public groups. A neighborhood Facebook group is public marketing.
- Nothing that identifies the property. Even “I’ve got a gorgeous 4-bedroom on the north side coming up soon” can be close enough, depending on your MLS.
The whole point of the delayed-marketing option is that the seller chose not to market publicly yet. A social post undoes the seller’s choice. If you aren’t sure which option the seller picked, ask before anyone builds a post.
Local MLS Rules Vary
NAR writes the model policy. Your MLS adopts its own version, and the details differ from one market to the next. Things to look up in your MLS rules:
- How your MLS defines public marketing. Some MLSs give examples that specifically mention social media.
- Whether your MLS has a “Coming Soon” status, and what you’re allowed to do with a listing in that status. Some allow limited marketing, some don’t, and the details matter.
- How business days are counted, and when the clock starts.
- What exempt listing options your MLS offers and how the seller elects them.
- How violations are handled. Penalties and fines are set locally.
Don’t rely on a rule that worked in another market. If you hold licenses in two places or moved recently, check each MLS separately. Your broker or your MLS’s staff can tell you how they apply the policy.
A Coming Soon Post That Works
If the seller wants public marketing, your MLS allows pre-market promotion, and you’re ready to submit the listing within one business day, a coming-soon post is fine. Here’s how we’d approach it:
- Confirm the listing path. The seller has chosen public marketing, not a delayed-marketing exempt listing.
- Confirm your MLS’s rules for coming-soon promotion and status.
- Have the listing ready to submit. If you can’t get it into the MLS within one business day of the post, don’t post yet.
- Get the seller’s permission for the post itself, including which photos and details to show.
- Use photos you have the rights to. See who owns listing photos.
- Put your brokerage name on it, in the image and the caption. A coming-soon post is advertising like any other. See our state-by-state advertising rules.
- Follow up with the just listed post once it’s live. Our just listed post ideas article has caption ideas.
Other Agents’ Coming Soon Listings
If another agent posts a teaser for their own coming-soon listing, don’t share it to your business pages unless you have that listing broker’s permission. That’s a separate rule: advertising another broker’s listing requires the listing broker’s permission under NAR MLS policy, and South Carolina and New York write that into statute. See can you post another agent’s listing on social media?.
Brokers: Make the Timing Someone’s Job
Most Clear Cooperation problems we see aren’t about bad intent. They’re about timing. The agent posts a teaser on Thursday, the photographer reschedules, the listing paperwork isn’t finished, and suddenly the one-business-day window is gone.
If you run a brokerage, put pre-market posts in your social media policy:
- Who decides whether a listing can be promoted before it’s live
- How agents confirm the seller’s choice under the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy
- That delayed-marketing listings get no public posts of any kind
Our brokerage social media policy outline and how brokers supervise agent advertising cover the rest.
How We Handle Coming Soon Posts for Clients
When Freedom runs an agent’s social media, coming-soon and delayed-marketing listings are on the never-list by default. We’ll build a pre-market post only when the agent tells us the seller chose public marketing and the listing is ready to go into the MLS within the required window. A Freedom VA builds the post, the agent approves it, and only then does it get scheduled. Nothing goes out unapproved.
If Freedom coordinates your listing, we can post your Just Listed announcement too, timed to the day the listing hits the MLS. Ask when you get started. See turning transaction milestones into social media posts and the social media management service page.
We don’t answer comments or DMs. If a coming-soon post brings in questions, those go to you.
Quick Check Before a Pre-Market Post
- Did the seller choose public marketing, or a delayed-marketing exempt listing?
- Does your MLS allow this kind of promotion, and under what status?
- Can the listing be in the MLS within one business day of this post?
- Did the seller approve the post and the details in it?
- Do you have the rights to the photos?
- Is your brokerage name on the post?
If any answer is no or “I’m not sure,” wait. A just listed post a few days later costs you very little. A Clear Cooperation complaint costs more.
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