Rolling Back the Odometer

Lemons, Listings and Selective Visibility

Roald Dahl’s stories were never just for children.

When I read his books with my son, I often catch myself saying out loud, “Is this really for kids?” There is always something beneath the absurdity, something sharper. Dahl had a singular way of disguising serious truths inside outlandish characters and improbable plots.

And his storytelling? Wild, to say the least.

My son and I love Matilda. We discovered the book first and, naturally, embraced the film that followed. The 1996 adaptation starring Danny DeVito has never left rotation in our house. I would estimate we’ve watched it at least twenty times.

Our fascination inevitably settles on Miss Trunchbull. I suspect we are in good company.

A former Olympian turned tyrannical headmistress, she swings children by their pigtails and locks them in “the chokey.” Quite literally. The character is so outrageously exaggerated that it feels safe to laugh — at least that’s what I tell myself.

And laugh we do.

But recently, during what must have been our twenty-first viewing, something struck me. It wasn’t Matilda’s natural powers or the oppressively funny chocolate cake scene. It was the car dealership.

Harry Wormwood, Matilda’s father, proudly takes her and her brother to his used car lot and explains how he “fixes” cars before selling them. He doesn’t replace engines. Improving safety isn’t exactly on the agenda either.

Instead, he confidently attaches an electric drill to the odometer and spins the mileage backward.

If you’re not a Matilda connoisseur, perhaps you remember a similar moment in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, when Ferris attempts to reverse the mileage on his best friend’s father’s classic car after their unsanctioned joyride. Different movie, same idea.

When Matilda objects to her father’s devious activities, he snaps back, “I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right, you’re wrong.” In Wormwood’s world, cleverness — not honesty — is the path to profit.

Matilda’s brazen father didn’t change the car. He merely changed the number attached to it, hoping it would increase the sales price.

And suddenly, I wasn’t watching a children’s movie anymore.

The Lemon

Wormwood wasn’t just manipulating mileage. He was in the business of selling lemons.

When someone says, “I bought a lemon,” they mean the product looked fine on the surface, but something critical was hidden and only discovered after purchase. Entire consumer protection statutes, known as lemon laws, exist around this premise: buyers deserve recourse when sellers conceal material defects.

Long before lemon laws, economist George Akerlof warned about something deeper.

In 1970, Akerlof published The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism. His thesis was relatively simple yet profound: when sellers possess more information than buyers, and buyers cannot distinguish between high-quality and low-quality goods, markets begin to deteriorate.

He illustrated his theory through the used-car market, where the imbalance is obvious. Sellers know the car’s history. Buyers do not. But the warning extended far beyond automobiles. The paper examined what happens when indicators of quality are unevenly distributed — when one side can see what the other cannot.

It works like this:

Buyers assume average quality. Sellers of higher-quality goods exit because they cannot obtain fair value. What remains? Lemons.

Circling back to Wormwood’s car lot, this was precisely the asymmetry he exploited. He knew the car’s true mileage; the buyer did not. The odometer, that simple number displayed on the dashboard, functioned as an observable signal of quality. It communicated value without the buyer ever needing to look under the hood.

Put more simply, when an indicator is altered, value is misread.

Indicators That Matter

If you are connecting the dots, you already know where I am headed.

Real estate, like cars, has its own dashboard with important indicators.

Price history.
Days on market.
Prior price reductions.
Withdrawn listings.
Failed escrows.

When those indicators reflect extended market exposure or multiple price reductions, they shape buyer perception and pricing strategy alike.

According to the 2026 Agent Trends Survey conducted by ZG Population Science:

• 75% of agents report using price history most or all of the time when determining a listing price, with 42% reporting they do so all of the time.

• 67% report using days-on-market statistics most or all of the time when advising sellers on pricing.

Speaking of odometers, these numbers are not incidental. They reflect how professionals price property and rely on a clear picture of the marketplace.

If price history and days on market inform listing advice three-quarters of the time, how can those indicators be optional? They cannot. In fact, the opposite is true.

And consider this:

An unrepresented buyer — or a buyer working with a dual agent — asks about a private listing, “How long has this property been on the market?” “Has the seller reduced the price?”

What happens if those answers exist, are used to price the property, but are not publicly visible or disclosed?

This leads to bigger questions: What kind of market are we creating? And perhaps more importantly, what kind of trust are we selling?

Behind the Dashboard

In recent reporting on the dispute between Zillow and Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), proposed changes would allow brokers to prevent the display of price history and days on market through IDX feeds. The debate has largely been framed as control versus transparency, now classic in industry discussions surrounding private listing networks.

Even if MRED participants retain access to these data points within the MLS, limiting their display through IDX feeds would still restrict what consumers can independently evaluate without agent mediation.

Step back for a moment, and the picture begins to resemble something else: increasing asymmetry.

Remember good old George? Akerlof laid this out decades ago. He warned that markets erode over time when information is no longer shared equally. That imbalance does not explode overnight; it accumulates.

Grasping the whole picture now, let’s add it up. Private listing networks, display permissions, and IDX controls are not just mechanics. They are gatekeeping mechanisms that determine who sees what, when, and how — and whether the market remains fair and transparent.

And this is the same market where agents rely heavily on price history and days on market when advising sellers on pricing, while buyers may be asked to evaluate properties without always seeing those same indicators.

To be clear, I am not suggesting we are creating a full-blown market for lemons. But I can safely conclude — not as an economist but as someone invested in compliance — that confidence declines when foundational data becomes optional. Trust in the real estate profession takes a hit as well.

Private listing networks restrict visibility, curating who gets access to what information. In certain private or restricted listing environments, the brokerage may determine whether indicators such as price history or days on market are displayed publicly, even when those indicators exist internally within the MLS.

Buyers operating within those networks may not see the full picture of a listing or fully appreciate how brokerage structure and strategy influence the context in which the property is presented. Some buyers never even get a seat at the table.

When price history becomes selectively visible, the tilt is noticeable and the asymmetry consequential. There are winners and losers. Some of the losers may never know why.

As the world turns, this is my cue to ask: is real estate’s much-celebrated return to transparency post-settlement quite what it was promised to be?

What Kind of Marketplace We Build

In Matilda, the odometer rollback is played for humor. The audience laughs, but it also knows it is wrong.

In real estate, asymmetry is quieter. It hides inside policy updates, display permissions, and, if I am being honest, strategic positioning.

Yet the principle remains the same. When indicators are hidden, price history obscured, and visibility becomes selective, value is distorted, and some consumers pay the price.

That is why the current debate over IDX feeds and display permissions matters. When one side argues for the ability to suppress price history and days on market, and another insists those insights remain visible to buyers, this is not a minor disagreement. It is not merely technical. It is fundamental.

Preserving access to those insights, particularly when agents overwhelmingly rely on them, is not simply a platform position. Upholding listing transparency is foundational. Markets function best when those numbers are accurate and visible to all.

For those reasons, the recent Zillow win, with Compass’ pursuit of an injunction denied, was not merely a corporate victory. It was a consumer one.

As Roald Dahl observed in The Twits, “A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.”

In real estate, fiduciary duty is the equivalent of those “good thoughts.” Licensees fulfill that duty only when they protect their clients from informational disadvantage, not when they contribute to it. That means placing their clients’ interests above strategic positioning and keeping the dashboard unobscured for all.

Transparency is not selective visibility. They are two very different flags flying in opposite directions.

Real estate does not need to be clever. It needs to decide what kind of marketplace it wants to build and the caliber of professionals entrusted to shape it.

Whether we are talking about used cars or homes, consumers deserve to see the whole dashboard. A marketplace built on clarity, not cleverness.

The numbers are already there.

The choice is ours.

NOTE: The opinions and recommendations expressed in this article are based on Summer Goralik’s experience as a real estate compliance consultant and former investigator for the California Department of Real Estate. They are provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Readers should consult with their brokerage and/or qualified legal counsel in their jurisdiction for guidance on specific situations.