Should I use Coming Soon or Delayed Marketing to list my Miami home?
Use Coming Soon only if the house truly isn't ready for photos and showings. MIAMI MLS caps it at 21 days, bars every showing during that window, and allows it once per calendar year for a property. Delayed Marketing keeps your listing off Zillow and the other portals, and it requires a signed seller waiver. For most homes in the $2M to $3M range in Coral Gables and Pinecrest, a clean Active launch beats both.
By Lynley Ciorobea | October 23, 2026
Twenty-one days. That's how long MIAMI MLS lets a listing sit in Coming Soon before the system flips it to Active on its own, ready or not.
For those three weeks, nobody shows the house. Not you, not your listing office, not a buyer's agent who happens to be a friend. Agents can book appointments, but only for the day you go Active or later. Offers can come in. You can't accept one.
The upside is real. Days on market don't accrue while you're in Coming Soon, so the clock starts the day buyers can actually walk through. A house that spent three weeks finishing its landscaping doesn't show up with a stale number attached.
When Coming Soon earns its keep
It works when the house is almost ready and you know exactly what's left. The pool crew needs ten more days. The photographer is booked for the weekend after the painters leave. If you're selling in Coral Gables and an exterior color change is waiting on city approval, that's a legitimate reason to hold the launch.
It doesn't work as a hype machine. Three weeks of "coming soon" on a portal is three weeks of buyers looking at a house they can't see, and some of them will move on to one they can.
Two other rules catch people. You get Coming Soon once per calendar year for a given property (with exceptions if it sold, rented, or was relisted with another member), and you can't push an Active listing back into it. If the 21 days run out and the house still isn't ready, the listing has to go to Withdrawn until it is. If your first launch has already stalled and you're weighing a pull, the withdraw-or-relist math is a different conversation.
Delayed Marketing is a different trade. MIAMI MLS offers it inside Coming Soon. The seller signs a disclosure acknowledging they're delaying some of the benefits of broad exposure, and the listing appears only on the listing broker's own website, not in the IDX feeds that supply the big portals. MIAMI MLS's own explainer says showings and open houses are still allowed in this mode, and that the listing history stays hidden. An agent who skips the seller's written authorization faces a $1,000 fine. Rules like these get revised, so ask to see the current form before you sign anything.
People want this when privacy matters: an estate, a divorce, a name everyone in town knows. NAR reaffirmed in March 2026 that pre-marketing is allowed under Clear Cooperation and that each MLS sets its own local rules, which is why Miami's version looks the way it does.
What you give up is the audience. Portal alerts never fire. The buyer's agent who isn't in your network never sees the house. You're betting the right buyer already knows you exist.
For a one-of-a-kind waterfront estate, that bet can make sense. For a standard house in Pinecrest, you're trading away competition, and competition is how you get paid. I compared the MLS to a fully private sale in this earlier post, and the same logic holds here.
Across my Coral Gables single-family listings, the median time to contract is 6 days. That's my record, not a forecast for your house. It's why I treat launch week as the main event, and why I'm wary of any plan that keeps buyers from seeing the house during it.
Before you sign a listing agreement, ask one question. If we use Coming Soon, what date does the 21-day clock end, and what exactly has to be finished by then? If the answer is vague, list it Active the day the photos are done and skip the waiting room.
About Lynley Ciorobea
Lynley Ciorobea is a Miami-born real estate professional known for helping homeowners successfully prepare, position, and sell their homes across Coral Gables, South Miami, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and the surrounding southern Miami neighborhoods. Since 2007, she has built her business around thoughtful strategy, strong negotiation, and a marketing-first approach designed to help listings stand out in an ever-evolving market. A true local, Lynley grew up in Pinecrest and graduated from Palmer Trinity School before attending Duke University, where she earned a BA in Psychology. As the founder of the Lynley Residential Group, Lynley remains personally involved in every listing she represents. With more than $250 million in career transactions and more than 70 5-star Google reviews, she brings a local perspective that goes far beyond surface-level market knowledge.
If you are thinking through a pre-sale exterior plan for your own house, I am happy to walk you through the order of operations. Reach out anytime at lynleyresidential.com.