On Nov 8, 2008, at 12:54 PM, Dan M wrote: >> The difference can often be one between a realtor who is genuinely >> motivated to act as his/her buyer's agent and negotiate aggressively >> for a good deal for the buyer, and one who is motivated more by a >> desire to get the commission from the sale and inclined to push the >> buyer into a fairly adverse deal just to close the sale. > > First of all, the buyer rarely pays the realtor. Thus, the realtor > I have > used the most in my life (once to help me find a rental property, > twice to > buy a house, and once to sell a house) told me explicitly that > legally she > represented the seller when I was the buyer/renter, so I should not > count on > her to look after my interest.
Hmm, realtors in your area may deal with that differently than they do here. The local realty boards here went through a pretty massive overhaul of how they handle relationships with buyers and sellers some time back, and we actually do have contractually bound buyer and seller agents, and buyer agents are actually obligated to look after the buyer's interests. Your local board may do it differently. (Texas did that because what was happening up until then was that the listing agent would act overtly on behalf of the seller, but a lot of buyers weren't aware that the realtor they were working with was *also* acting on behalf of the seller and not representing them, and there were a lot of things that weren't getting disclosed because people assumed the realtors they were working with would tell them up front if something was wrong with the deal, and people were getting some really raw deals. So the state board stepped in and established that actual buyer-agent role in its contract system, because that was the perception anyway and some of the slimier realtors were taking very unfair advantage of it. I got a rather fascinating education on that in the past couple of years.) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
