Last Updated on April 15, 2026 by Elizabeth Nolan
If you’ve been on the MLS lately, you may have noticed a new button appearing on some listings: Submit Offer. That’s ShowingTime’s Offer Manager — and it’s rolling out across MLSs nationwide.
Before you click it for the first time at 9pm on a Sunday with a buyer waiting, here’s what it actually does, what it doesn’t do, and what you need to have ready before you touch that button.
What Offer Manager Is (And What It Isn’t)
Offer Manager is a document delivery and communication platform. It is not a forms library. It is not a replacement for DotLoop, Transaction Desk, or zipForms. Think of it as a very organized mailbox — with read receipts.
The button on the MLS listing says “Submit Offer,” which implies a complete workflow. What it actually does is open a document upload screen that expects you to arrive with a fully prepared, signed offer package already in hand. If you’re not ready to upload a completed contract plus supporting documents, you’re not ready to click Submit Offer.
That distinction matters more than anything else in this post.
What It Does Well
The workflow benefits are real, and they solve genuine pain points that every listing agent has experienced.
For listing agents: All offers are automatically organized by listing in one place — no more hunting through emails, texts, and faxes to pull together what came in. When you have multiple offers, the side-by-side comparison view makes it straightforward to walk a seller through competing terms without building a spreadsheet from scratch. When an offer status changes, you can notify all buyer’s agents simultaneously rather than making individual calls. And their contact information is stored with each offer, so there’s no hunting for the right number at 9pm.
For buyer’s agents: The read receipt is the biggest practical win. Once the listing agent opens your offer, you get an automatic date and time-stamped notification. That eliminates the “did you get my offer?” phone tag that has burned agents in competitive situations. You submitted, they opened it, you have confirmation — move on.
The Workflow Agents Get Wrong
Offer Manager doesn’t talk to DotLoop or Transaction Desk. DotLoop is a Zillow product, but Transaction Desk is a Lone Wolf Technologies platform — completely separate ownership, no shared infrastructure. What they have in common is that neither one integrates with Offer Manager on the submission side. Regardless of which platform you use to build your offer, the handoff to Offer Manager is manual:
- Prepare your offer in whatever platform you use (DotLoop, Transaction Desk, zipForms)
- Export your documents as PDFs
- Go to the MLS listing and find the Submit Offer button
- Upload the PDFs manually into Offer Manager
- Fill out the offer summary form separately
That’s two systems, two logins, two separate actions — under deadline pressure. Agents who assume the platforms sync automatically because they’re both “Zillow products” are the ones who discover the gap at 9:05pm.
Set yourself up before you need it. The Submit Offer button appears in three places: on the main MLS listing page, in the Schedule a Showing section, and in feedback and update emails from the listing agent. It’s not always where you expect it. Know where to look before you’re in a competitive situation.
Your ShowingTime profile has to be current. Offers are delivered to the email and SMS number in your ShowingTime profile — plus via push notification if you have the app installed. If that information is out of date, offers go nowhere. Check it now, not when you’re expecting something.
The 9pm Sunday Scenario
Here’s how to prepare so this doesn’t happen to you:
Before you’re ever in a competitive situation, do two things. First, make sure your ShowingTime account is set up with a current email, current mobile number, and the app installed on your phone. This is a one-time setup that takes ten minutes and should happen now, not under pressure.
Second, when you’re scheduling showings on any listing, note whether a “Submit Offer” button is already visible. If it is, that listing agent has opted into Offer Manager, and you now know in advance what the submission workflow will be if your buyer wants to write.
If something goes wrong after submission, ShowingTime support is available Monday through Friday 7am–8pm CT and Saturday through Sunday 8am–5pm CT (888-367-4009). Sunday at 9pm Eastern is 8pm Central — right at the edge of the support window. Know that before you need it.
If you attached the wrong document, the most important step is to contact the listing agent directly before they open the offer. Once it’s opened, the read receipt timestamps it. An unopened offer can sometimes be pulled back. An opened one is in the listing agent’s hands. Don’t wait to see if they notice the error.
The training reframe that covers most of the confusion: Offer Manager doesn’t replace your phone call. It replaces your email attachment. You still confirm with the listing agent. You just no longer need to worry about whether the attachment actually went through.
The Zillow Question
Because ShowingTime is owned by Zillow, and Offer Manager handles offer documents, the reasonable question is: what happens to that data?
The honest answer is nuanced. There is no documented instance of Zillow reading specific offer prices and terms submitted through Offer Manager. The ShowingTime+ privacy policy does state that data may be used to improve artificial intelligence and machine learning models and algorithms (the Zestimate), and that enabling integrations between ShowingTime and Zillow Group affiliates authorizes data exchange. That’s a broad grant.
The DotLoop history is worth knowing. When Zillow acquired DotLoop in 2015, they offered an explicit privacy guarantee. In 2020, that policy changed quietly — users had to opt out of data sharing, and the opt-out required emailing support, not toggling a switch. Most agents never knew it happened. ShowingTime and DotLoop now share the same unified privacy policy under the ShowingTime+ umbrella.
What this means practically: the workflow benefits of Offer Manager are real. The data policy language is broad. Both things are true. This isn’t a reason to avoid the tool — it’s a reason to understand what you’re using and make an informed choice, which is exactly the kind of decision your clients rely on you to make for yourself. That context matters particularly now, as the private listings debate has sellers asking more pointed questions about where their transaction data goes.
What This Means for Your Seller Conversation
The private listings debate has always been about seller control — specifically, who sees the property and when. Offer Manager extends that question one step further: it’s not just who sees the listing, it’s who sees the offer activity.
Every offer submitted through Offer Manager on an MLS-listed property moves through Zillow infrastructure. That includes offer volume, timing, and the summary form data that buyer’s agents fill out at submission. MLSs like NJMLS are already running Offer Manager as an active member benefit on their listings, and broader adoption is the trajectory ShowingTime is pursuing across the country.
For most sellers, this isn’t a concern. But for a seller who is already asking about Compass or private listing options because they want to control their transaction’s exposure — a seller who doesn’t want the market to know how many offers came in, or how quickly, or at what pace — Offer Manager is worth mentioning in that conversation. Not as a reason to go private, but as part of the honest picture of what MLS listing with Offer Manager opted in actually means.
The detail that catches agents off guard: listing agents opt into Offer Manager at the listing level. Sellers may not know it’s been enabled unless their agent tells them. That gap in communication is where trust problems start.
Your job isn’t to steer sellers toward or away from private listings based on this. It’s to be the agent who can explain the full picture — including the parts of the MLS workflow that most agents don’t think to mention.
What to Do Right Now
Before Offer Manager appears on a listing where your buyer wants to write:
- Log into ShowingTime and verify your profile email and mobile number
- Download the ShowingTime app if you don’t have it
- Practice finding the Submit Offer button on an active listing — just to know where it lives
- Know the support number: 888-367-4009, weekdays 7am–8pm CT, weekends 8am–5pm CT
Check whether your MLS offers alternatives. Some MLSs provide choices in showing and offer management platforms. If your MLS gives you the option, it’s worth knowing what it is — especially if your practice involves sellers who are sensitive about transaction data exposure. Contact your MLS directly to ask.
When you’re on the listing agent side and opting into Offer Manager:
- Set your Default Offer Instructions — these appear at the top of the offer form and tell buyer’s agents exactly what you need in the package
- Add your assistant to receive offer notifications if applicable
- Confirm your contact information is current before you go live
Offer Manager is useful friction-reduction when you know how it works. The agents who will struggle with it are the ones who discover the workflow for the first time under deadline pressure. Don’t be that agent.
Related: Zillow’s All-In-One Tech Stack: What Independent Agents Need to Know
