This is an estimate for planning. It is not a quote, an appraisal, an offer, a loan offer, or tax or legal advice, and Rudy is a real estate agent, not a lender or tax professional.
The five paths, in plain English
Open-market listing
Your listing goes live in the MLS and reaches public home-search sites, complete with photos, showings and open houses, and it’s in front of every buyer and agent at once.
When owners often choose it: When you want the broadest reach and a full read on price, with time for prep, showings and escrow.
Tradeoffs: Expect a busier showing schedule, and the price history goes on public record. Prep costs are paid ahead of the sale, escrow typically takes 30 to 45 days once an offer is accepted, and buyers may request repairs or credits once they’ve inspected.
Pre-market or Coming Soon
First looks go to a select few buyers, as a prelude to going public or as a stand-in for it. Three formats fit here: Coming Soon, delayed marketing, and the office-only listing, which a single brokerage keeps to itself.
When owners often choose it: When keeping things private, deciding the timing and the showings, or asking for terms like a later move-out date counts for more than the biggest audience.
Tradeoffs: Fewer buyers seeing the home can mean fewer offers and a thinner test of price. Coming Soon lasts no more than 30 days in SDMLS and 21 in CRMLS, without in-person showings, and you sign a form before it starts. There’s a Zillow rule as well: a home marketed publicly gets one business day to appear in the MLS; if it doesn’t, Zillow and Trulia won’t display it until that listing agreement is over.
As-is or cash offer
A buyer pays in cash and accepts the home as it is, often after one walkthrough. The column runs on a real offer you enter, using that buyer’s own figure.
When owners often choose it: When moving fast, keeping contingencies few, or skipping repairs and showings tops the list.
Tradeoffs: Cash offers are often lower than open-market value, the price of speed and certainty. Every buyer’s offer is its own. Find out which costs the buyer pays and which you do. A 1-to-3-week close is common, but timing differs from buyer to buyer.
Rent it out, sell later
You move out and a tenant moves in; the sale comes after however many years you choose.
When owners often choose it: When the rent would cover a good part of the monthly bills, selling at a later date fits your plans, or your time away from the island may be temporary.
Tradeoffs: There’s a manager’s fee or your own time, along with repairs and months without a tenant. Local rent and notice rules apply. Several years as a rental can affect the federal exclusion on home-sale gains, which asks for at least 2 years of ownership and use as your home within the 5 years before the sale. A CPA can walk you through it.
Keep the home
You stay, and the home stays yours. With no sale, there’s no selling cost to pay today.
When owners often choose it: When the home still fits the life you want, the loan terms are worth holding, or no moving date is fixed.
Tradeoffs: Your equity stays in the house, not in cash. Loan payments, tax, insurance and upkeep carry on. The home’s future value rides on the market; any growth rate you put in is your own guess, not a forecast.
Pre-market and coming-soon sales: the rules
When a home is marketed quietly or early, the rules come from three sources: the brokerage, the MLS and national REALTOR® policy. Sites like Zillow apply their own standards on top.
For starters, the National Association of REALTORS®, or NAR, hasn’t retired its Clear Cooperation Policy. A yard sign, an email blast, a flyer, a public website listing or a spot in a multi-brokerage network all count as public marketing, and once any of them shows up, the listing broker must get the home filed with the MLS inside one business day. A second NAR policy, Multiple Listing Options for Sellers, has applied since March 25, 2025 and gives sellers two paths other than a full public listing. Option one is delayed marketing: public home-search sites only get the listing after a waiting period the MLS sets, though agents at other brokerages can spot it in the MLS. The other is the office-only listing, which the MLS has on file but doesn’t share with other brokerages’ agents, and which isn’t marketed publicly. Each one begins with a signed seller disclosure.
Island homes are part of San Diego County, so a Coronado listing runs through SDMLS or CRMLS, short for the San Diego MLS and the California Regional MLS. Each has its own rules.
SDMLS first. A Coming Soon listing there may last up to 30 days. MLS agents can see it, and the seller can advertise and accept an offer, but it can’t be shown in person, and open houses are off the table. SDMLS doesn’t pass Coming Soon listings to IDX feeds (the way listings reach other brokers’ websites) or to public portals. A listing that turns Active can’t become Coming Soon again. For NAR’s delayed-marketing option, SDMLS offers an Active listing that stays off the internet. That option has no time limit, and in-person showings are allowed.
Then CRMLS. Coming Soon can last up to 21 days before the listing moves to Active. Showings aren’t allowed in any form, and each ad must label the home Coming Soon. Usually IDX feeds pick these listings up, and so do Homes.com, Realtor.com and other portals, though a seller form from 2026 can keep them away from IDX. Leaving Coming Soon is a one-way step. CRMLS skips the delayed-marketing option altogether, and it holds that only a listing in the MLS may be promoted to the public past the brokerage.
Across California, the MLS choices a seller makes go on the MLSA, C.A.R.’s form named the Multiple Listing Service Addendum, which was revised in September 2025. An MLS can also require a form of its own. In signing NAR’s disclosure, the seller acknowledges what’s traded away, like the wide, immediate buyer exposure the MLS provides.
Zillow draws its own line. Under its Listing Access Standards, a publicly marketed home must show up in the MLS within one business day; if not, it stays off Zillow and Trulia as long as that listing agreement runs. A home that isn’t publicly marketed also needs a waiver, signed by the seller, that lays out the drawbacks.
The rules have been updated a number of times since 2025, and a brokerage can set its own policy too. Rudy will confirm which MLS and rules apply to your island home and your timing.
Rules as of 2026-10-30. Sources: NAR: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers; NAR: MLS Clear Cooperation Policy (Policy Statement 8.0); NAR: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers FAQ (May 27, 2025); NAR: Office Exclusive Listings, Pre-Marketing Guidance; SDMLS: DMEL & DMLE: What’s the Difference? (Coming Soon Status, revised July 2026); SDMLS: The SELM Is a Discontinued Form (use the C.A.R. MLSA); CRMLS: Coming Soon Status; CRMLS: Limited Exposure for Coming Soon FAQs; CRMLS: C.A.R. Form MLSA (Multiple Listing Service Addendum) FAQs; Zillow: Listing Access Standards (PDF). Your agent will confirm what applies to your home.
About these numbers
- Think of these as planning estimates from what you entered. They aren’t an appraisal, an offer or a forecast.
- There’s no set commission: you negotiate it, and it’s written into your listing agreement. Selling costs reflect the rates you entered.
- For each month until closing, holding costs count your loan interest along with tax, insurance and HOA dues.
- Cash at closing and cash years from now aren’t worth the same. The rent and keep columns don’t include income tax, depreciation or what your money could earn in the meantime.
- Any tax on the gain sits outside this math. Before you decide, and above all if you plan to rent the home first, ask your CPA about the home-sale exclusion.
Questions owners ask
How does Zillow treat a quiet sale of my island home?
That depends on how it’s marketed. Zillow’s Listing Access Standards say that once a home is marketed publicly, it has one business day to land in the MLS, and if it misses that, Zillow and Trulia won’t carry it for the rest of that listing agreement. A home that isn’t publicly marketed needs a seller-signed waiver for Zillow that explains the drawbacks. SDMLS holds its Coming Soon listings back from public portals. In CRMLS, though, portals like Realtor.com and Homes.com usually do get them. Rudy can walk you through each choice.
How long can my home stay in Coming Soon?
Up to 30 days in SDMLS. In CRMLS the limit is 21 days, after which the listing turns Active on its own. Neither allows in-person showings, and in both, a listing that has moved on from Coming Soon can’t go back. SDMLS also has an Active listing that isn’t shown online; no time limit applies, and in-person visits are allowed.
Can I rent out my island home and sell it later?
You can, and the rent column shows how it might look. It begins with your rent and takes away vacancy, management, upkeep, the loan payment, and your tax, insurance and HOA costs. Landlord rules apply too, including local rent and notice rules. On taxes, renting for a long stretch can affect the federal home-sale exclusion, which can keep as much as $250,000 of profit from being taxed, or $500,000 for spouses who file jointly, when you’ve owned the home and made it your residence for a minimum of 2 years in the 5-year window before you sell. Ask your CPA.
What if I’m not ready to leave the island at all?
Then the keep column is your view. No sale means no selling costs today, and your equity stays in the home. The loan, tax, insurance and upkeep continue. The column shows your equity after the years you pick, based on a growth rate you choose, so test a couple of rates, 0% among them.
Do I have to accept a set commission rate?
No. You and your agent negotiate commission, and the listing agreement records it. The rate you type is applied in three places: an open-market listing, a pre-market sale, and the sale at the end of the rent column. Try two or three rates to see how much the net moves.
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