New York real estate is quietly becoming a battle for access, and most consumers don’t even realize the rules are changing.

The most important battle may no longer be who gets the listing — it may be who gets to see it. For most of my career, a listing broker’s job has been straightforward: create demand, tell the property’s story, expose it to the right buyers, negotiate expertly, and ultimately get the best possible outcome for the seller. Now a fundamental element of that role is shifting — access itself.

That does not mean private listings are inherently problematic, or even new. I’ve sold properties quietly myself. Sometimes discretion is necessary—for privacy reasons, security concerns, divorce proceedings, an occupied home, or to test a pricing strategy.

But what was once the exception is becoming more the norm.

As of August 12, Marketproof identified 440 Manhattan properties being offered as ‘Participant Only’ listings, representing approximately $1.94 billion in asking volume. Of this total, 47 new Participant Only listings were added in June, 144 in July, and 153 in just the first 12 days of August.

This isn’t just a trophy-market phenomenon. Marketproof found that nearly 30% of those listings were asking under $1 million. And The Real Deal’s recent analysis points in the same direction, reporting a 30% increase in off-market residential sales volume across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens in 2025.

Put those numbers together, and it becomes difficult to dismiss private real estate as merely the world of whisper listings and ultra-high-net-worth sellers. Private marketing is becoming mainstream, which deserves a closer look. We need to ascertain who benefits.

So, who owns the listing? Legally, the answer is obvious — the seller owns the property. In practice, the picture is more nuanced. Listings have become valuable currency: they attract buyers, who generate data and relationships. And those relationships lead to transactions that create market share and leverage.

Perhaps we should be asking a different question: When did exclusivity stop meaning the right to represent a property and start meaning the right to restrict who sees it?

The seller wants the best possible combination of price, privacy, certainty, and timing. The broker wants to represent the seller successfully, protect the relationship, and complete the transaction. The brokerage or platform has another economic interest: inventory. Listings attract consumers, engagement, data, and future business. None of these interests is inherently improper. But when they diverge, we need to be very clear about whose interest comes first.

For me, the seller has to be the North Star. That is where the debate becomes complicated.

StreetEasy has argued that the growth of private listings creates artificial scarcity and gatekeeping. Supporters of private marketing argue that sellers should have the right to decide how — and how publicly — their homes are marketed.

I understand both arguments. But I keep coming back to one question: Does restricting exposure actually create a better outcome for the seller? If it does, show me.

The early data is fascinating, partly because it doesn’t give us a definitive answer. Marketproof found that 78% of the Participant Only listings it analyzed had previously been publicly marketed. Of those Participant Only listings that came off the market without selling, roughly one-third subsequently returned to the public market. Additionally, those relistings came back at a median asking price 6.4% below their Participant Only asking price, according to Marketproof. While interesting, it doesn’t prove that private marketing is ineffective.

There aren’t enough matched transactions yet to determine whether comparable privately marketed properties ultimately sell for more or less than publicly marketed ones. That’s precisely why I think the industry should be careful about declaring victory on either side.

Real estate value is established through imperfect but important information: comparable transactions, current competition, buyer behavior, and ultimately what someone is willing to pay. Exposure is part of that price-discovery mechanism, but it doesn’t mean maximum exposure always produces maximum price.

Scarcity can create urgency. A sophisticated broker may know exactly which handful of buyers are right for a particular property. However, we need to be careful not to confuse controlled exposure with manufactured scarcity.

Another reason this conversation matters now: Consolidation is changing the brokerage business. Large firms can offer extraordinary advantages — technology, referral networks, data, marketing resources, and access to enormous numbers of agents and consumers. Scale itself isn’t the problem, But when scale is combined with proprietary inventory, the competitive equation changes.

For years, technology moved residential real estate toward greater transparency. Consumers gained access to listings, price histories, comparable sales, building information, and market data that once largely resided with brokers. That disrupted our industry, but I think it made good brokers more valuable — not less. A great broker shouldn’t be afraid of this transparency.

Our value is actually understanding the information. It’s knowing why one apartment deserves $2,000 per square foot while another in the same building doesn’t. It’s knowing when to walk away from a bidding war, how to position an unusual property, how to navigate a board, how to structure a complicated deal —  and how to tell a seller something they may not want to hear.

None of this means every property should automatically be marketed publicly. But as a broker, my responsibility is making sure the seller understands the nuance.

Whenever an industry undergoes structural change, I find it useful to ask one simple question: Who benefits? And I always circle back to the ultimate one: What will produce the best outcome for my client?

Before New York embraces a fundamentally different marketplace, we should demand enough transparency to know, because the future of residential brokerage shouldn’t be decided solely by which company has the largest network or which website has the largest audience.

None of us should confuse access to the listing with ownership of the client’s interests.

So, if private marketing creates greater value for sellers, let’s prove it. If an open marketplace creates greater value, let’s prove that too. If the answer depends upon the particular seller and property, let’s have the sophistication to say so.

Because ultimately, the most important question isn’t whether a listing is public or private; it’s whether restricting access creates value for the seller — or just value for the company controlling the access. Those are not the same thing.

And right now, New York real estate needs to understand the difference.