Evidence That Traditional Agents Can Have Home Showing Biases

Some people don’t believe me when I tell them that “buyer agents” at traditional firms tend to push their own listings over others…due to perhaps getting in-house spiffs…. Remember - as a home buyer, when you hire an Exclusive Buyer Agent to represent you - that agent and their company never list property for sale - and so there is no biased home showing or dual agency conflicts of interest situations.

This is evidence….

“Besides camaraderie, @properties uses other techniques to encourage sales, including rewarding the two brokers who sell the most properties listed in-house with overseas trips. One quarter last year, the winners went to Italy. Another time, to Paris. And any broker who sells $10 million worth of real estate, in any type of transaction, is offered the choice of a Rolex or a Cartier watch.”

Obviously – when an agent pushes their in-house listings or worse yet - their own listings - the buyer experiences biased home showings - and can experience dual agency conflicts of interest with the buyer being equally represented with the seller. The buyer doesn't have someone fully on their side in that case – and doesn't have all the information available to get a good buy on a property that they would have had - had their agent not declared "dual agency" on them.

More About Dual Agency Conflicts of Interest (What You Get if You Hire a Buyer Agent)

A "Buyer Agent" is an agent that is supposed to be representing the buyer - but can get into Dual Agency conflict of interest situations because they and their company list property for sale. Most of the public is clueless about this fact - and the implications when their "Buyer Agent" turns into a dual agent. (And most don't receive full-disclosure up-front)

An Exclusive Buyer Agent does not list property for sale - nor does their company - ensuring that they are always looking out for their buyer's best interests.

One person e-mailed me today:

I just found this "dual agency" guide on the Internet. Questions You May Want to Ask a So-called "Buyer Agent" Before You Hire Them I'm sorry I didn't know about this guide three years ago. Being a completely uninformed consumer (like the great majority of the public) back then, I became an easy mark for two incompetent, unethical agents who failed to explain or disclose crucial material facts about Company X's (name deleted) representation policy. Now I'm a lot wiser.

The most disturbing aspect is the fact that Company X's is using the absence of a separate written contract with my so-called buyer's agent Ms. X (which she never offered to me, by the way) to argue that she NEVER had a fiduciary duty toward me--although she showed me 8-10 houses over a three-month period, called me several times a week to announce new listings, encouraged me to attend open houses at them, drove me in her car to three of them, and gave me advice on what to bid on my house of choice.

In other words, the Company X management seems to believe that Ms X's statutory violations--failure to provide the mandatory written disclosure form when showing me Company X's properties, to function as a dual agent, or to assign me an intra-company agent if she refused this role---can be grounds for claiming that she was not my buyer's agent at all, even though she openly functioned as such and testified to this effect in two depositions!

Even one of the members of her real estate team wrote in a document that she thought Ms. X was serving as a buyer's agent in the negotiating process, and even the seller of the house of choice believed she was representing me!

The concept of dual agency obviously serves the interest of real estate companies by encouraging the practice of double dipping. It is inherently deceitful and unfair. .