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
This is the full public route, with your home on the MLS and public search websites, plus showings, open houses and listing photos. All buyers and their agents hear about it at once.
When owners often choose it: Reaching the most buyers and getting a true test of price are your goals, and your orders allow enough time for prep, showings and escrow.
Tradeoffs: Showings are more frequent, and your price history is public. Prep is paid for up front. In most cases escrow takes 30 to 45 days after you accept an offer, and once the buyer has inspected, they may ask for repairs or credits.
Pre-market or Coming Soon
Only a select group of buyers hears about the home at first, and a public launch may come later or not at all. You can pick Coming Soon, go with delayed marketing, or use an office-only listing visible inside one brokerage alone.
When owners often choose it: You care more about privacy, a say over the timing and manner of showings, or terms such as a move-out date timed to your report date than about reaching every buyer out there.
Tradeoffs: Fewer buyers in the loop may bring fewer offers and a weaker check on price. Coming Soon allows no in-person tours and tops out at 30 days under SDMLS rules and 21 under CRMLS. A signed form comes before it starts. Zillow’s standard leaves a home off Zillow and Trulia while that listing agreement lasts if it’s publicly marketed but not added to the MLS within one business day.
As-is or cash offer
A cash buyer purchases the home as-is, often after just one walkthrough, or none at all. Type in a real offer and this column does the math with that buyer’s figure.
When owners often choose it: Your report date is close, or you’d rather not arrange repairs, showings and extra contingencies from afar.
Tradeoffs: The trade-off for speed and certainty is a price that often sits below open-market value, and each offer is unique. Get clear on which costs fall to the buyer and which fall to you. A close within 1 to 3 weeks is common, yet every buyer moves at a different pace, so ask how soon they can close.
Rent it out, sell later
You PCS to your next duty station, a tenant moves in, and the sale waits until the number of years you picked has gone by.
When owners often choose it: Rent from a tenant would cover a large part of the monthly bill, a later sale works for you, or future orders may bring you back to San Diego.
Tradeoffs: Budget for a manager’s fee, or your own long-distance effort, along with repairs and the months it might sit vacant. Local rent and notice rules apply. Renting it for a long time can affect your federal home-sale exclusion. The rule generally wants you to have owned and lived in the home for 2 or more years, all inside the 5 years before you sell. Your CPA can tell you how your dates fit.
Keep the home
You keep the home and go on living in it. Since nothing sells, you pay no selling costs today.
When owners often choose it: Your orders let you stay, the home still fits, your loan terms are worth keeping, or there’s no firm move date.
Tradeoffs: Equity remains in the house, not in cash you can use. Payments on the loan, tax, insurance and upkeep continue. Where the home’s value goes depends on the market, so the growth rate you enter is only a guess, never a forecast.
Pre-market and coming-soon sales: the rules
Who decides how quietly a home can be sold? Your MLS, your brokerage and national REALTOR® policy all have a say, and home-search sites like Zillow apply standards too.
Start with the national rules. NAR, the National Association of REALTORS®, still has its Clear Cooperation Policy in effect: within one business day of a home’s first public marketing, the listing broker has to add it to the MLS. Public marketing covers things like a flyer, a yard sign, an email blast, a public website or a listing network that several brokerages share. NAR’s Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy, effective March 25, 2025, gives sellers two paths short of a full public listing. Other agents can see a delayed-marketing listing inside the MLS, and the MLS sets the waiting period before public home-search sites get it. Office-only listings get filed with the MLS too, though no agent outside the listing brokerage can view them and there’s no public advertising. Both paths start with the seller signing a disclosure.
A home in San Diego County goes on one of two MLSs, either the San Diego MLS, known as SDMLS, or the California Regional MLS, known as CRMLS. Their rules aren’t the same.
Under SDMLS rules, Coming Soon can run for up to 30 days. During that window, MLS agents can look it up and the seller can advertise and even accept an offer, though in-person tours and open houses don’t happen. SDMLS withholds Coming Soon listings from public portals and from IDX, the data feed for other brokers’ websites. A listing that has gone Active can’t switch back to Coming Soon. When a seller picks NAR’s delayed-marketing path, SDMLS lists the home as Active but flagged to stay off the internet; there’s no time cap, and buyers may tour in person.
Under CRMLS rules, Coming Soon can run for up to 21 days before the listing turns Active on its own. Every type of showing is off the table, and any ad must label the home Coming Soon. CRMLS normally passes these listings to IDX feeds and to sites like Homes.com and Realtor.com. If the seller prefers, a form added in 2026 keeps them off IDX. Once a listing is out of Coming Soon, it can’t return. CRMLS has no delayed-marketing option, and it treats public marketing of a non-MLS listing outside the brokerage as off-limits.
In California, the seller marks MLS choices on a C.A.R. form named the Multiple Listing Service Addendum, or MLSA, revised in September 2025, and an MLS can require its own form as well. By signing NAR’s disclosure, the seller shows they know what they give up, such as the broad, instant reach of the MLS.
Zillow’s Listing Access Standards say that when a publicly marketed home isn’t in the MLS by the end of one business day, it’s barred from Zillow and Trulia for that listing agreement’s whole term. If the home gets no public marketing at all, Zillow has the seller sign a waiver laying out the downsides.
Since 2025 these rules have been revised several times, and brokerages can set their own policies on top. Rudy will confirm which MLS covers your home and which rules fit your timeline.
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
- Everything here is a planning estimate based on your entries. It isn’t an offer, an appraisal or a forecast.
- You and your agent negotiate the commission and set it in the listing agreement. The selling costs here come from the rates you typed.
- Each month until closing carries holding costs: HOA dues, insurance, property tax and the interest on your loan.
- Money in hand at closing and money that arrives years later aren’t equal in value. The rent and keep columns ignore income tax, depreciation and whatever the cash might earn in the meantime.
- These figures don’t include tax on your gain. Your CPA can tell you where you stand on the home-sale exclusion, especially if the house will be a rental before you sell.
Questions owners ask
Can I sell quietly before I PCS, without the home on public sites?
It can be done in some cases, inside MLS rules. SDMLS keeps a Coming Soon listing away from public portals for as long as 30 days, and an offer can be accepted during that time, though nobody tours in person and no open house is held. CRMLS caps Coming Soon at 21 days, allows no showings, and usually shares these listings with Realtor.com, Homes.com and other portals. An office-only listing skips public marketing altogether. You sign a form before any of these begin.
I’d like buyers to tour the home before I leave. Can a pre-market sale still work?
SDMLS has an option for that. Its take on NAR’s delayed marketing is an Active listing hidden from the internet that can run without a time limit, and buyers can visit in person. You sign a disclosure first. Coming Soon, in either MLS, rules out in-person showings, and CRMLS has no delayed-marketing choice at all. Rudy will tell you which MLS your home is in.
What should I plan for if I rent the house out after I PCS?
Either a paid manager or you, from wherever you’re stationed, will need to run the rental, and your budget should cover repairs and any months the home sits empty. Local rent and notice rules apply. Federal law lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain from a home sale, or $500,000 if you file jointly with your spouse. The general test is a total of 2 years or more of ownership and use as your home during the 5 years ending on the sale date. Renting for years can affect that, so ask your CPA how your dates line up.
How does a cash sale’s timing compare with a regular listing?
Cash closings in 1 to 3 weeks happen often, though each buyer is different, so ask when they could close. An open-market sale needs prep and market time first, then escrow, which usually lasts 30 to 45 days. In exchange for that speed and certainty, cash buyers often offer less than open-market value, so compare the net in each column.
What paperwork comes with holding off on public marketing?
First comes a signed disclosure, required by NAR’s 2025 policy, showing you understand the MLS exposure you’re delaying or waiving. In California, you also note your choice on C.A.R.’s MLS addendum, and the two local MLSs, SDMLS and CRMLS, each use a separate Coming Soon form. Rudy walks you through each form before anything quiet begins.
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