Posing as New

The blog Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking shows how brokers take listings that have been on the market for a while and re-list them to make them look new and more appealing.
We’re lucky in New York that this doesn’t happen here at nearly the rate it does elsewhere. My only experience with this in the New York market is when a listing is conveyed from one exclusive broker to another. Often times the new exclusive broker will have the old listing removed from the system to give the appearance that the property is new to the market.
(Have I ever done this? Once in a blue moon–and merely to make clear that I’m newly representing it. I have always let people know that it was on the market with another broker prior to my taking over.)
That said, I’ll make this promise right now: I will never again engage in this practice, as I absolutely see the deception involved.
An even greater ramification of this practice is that it skews the “days on market” numbers (i.e. If 3 brokers have a property for 6 months each and the last broker makes the listing “new,” it will appear that the property sold after 6 months when in fact it was on the market for 18 months.)
I challenge everyone in my industry to make the same promise, and to abolish this practice. By all means let people know that your representation of said property is new. But let’s not pretend it’s a new listing.