Thanks, that answers my ignorant question about whether the seller can nix the possibility of dual agency. But I wonder if there isn't any subliminal feel or maybe misperception that not accepting the possibility means your listing agent won't be as interested in your property as in others on his list where he has the chance of making both sides of the commision.

Hi!

We just sold our home through Remax. Our commission would have been 5% if 2 agents were involved, only 3% if our realtor brought in our buyer. As it happened, our realtor did bring in our buyer, so we are only paying the 3% commission. Our realtor represented both us as the seller, and the new buyer, but made it clear to our buyer that she is "our" realtor.

Elaine

I agreed to that thinking "Heaven forbid you bring in a buyer".

I have read about this several times on this forum. As an agent, I don't understand why anyone would want to limit where their offers come from. If an agent from another company sells your house, you are going to pay the entire 5%. In my area, if a person chooses "not to accept" dual agency, it gets referred to another agent in the office. (designated agency). (I have never heard of anyone not accepting dual agency unless they don't fully understand it)

The benefit of dual agency to you is your agent knows everything that is going on with the transaction. He is getting it first hand from the buyer, he can follow up with inspectors, mortgage agents, attorneys. If there is another agent involved, he has to rely solely on what that agent tells him and they may not be as forthcoming with the information if their buyer is having difficulties.

There are 2 sides to a transaction, both require work. If your agent brings you a buyer, he will be doing both. Why would you want to pay him less? Personally, I dont think its worth the few thousand you'll save to not allow dual agency.

I made it pretty clear that I don't want to bend to low offers as I think we priced it right already. I made it clear that I don't have to move, and would take the house off the market if the offers were too low.

Im not quite sure why you felt the need to say this when he was asking about dual agency? The bottom line is, YOU decide what offers you will accept. As a dual agent, your agent has to maintain a fiduciary relationship with both sides. He cannot tell the buyer your bottom line, (which he probably doesnt even know) and he cannot tell you the buyers max (which he probably doesnt know either). You have nothing to lose. If you don't like the offer, you turn it down. If you don't offer dual agency, you have just limited one more place your offer could come from.

I just wonder if I ripped myself off???

If you still feel like you would want a lower commission should your agent bring the buyer, its not too late to call and ask him. Don't wait until he has the buyer.

Linda, deciding to go with a realtor instead of doing it FSBO has, I think, more to do seeking support and guidance than with just hiring someone to do the paperwork. I think one of the reasons people decide to go with realtors instead of FSBO is to have that support of a knowlegable person to bounce negotiating decisions off. If you as the seller feel you have to withhold your negotiating bottom lines from your realtor then there goes a good half of the reason to hire one.

While I understand and agree with your point of removing one person from the flow of information about planned activities and paperwork streamlining the operation, do you really only want to be hired because you are a champion paper-pusher?

When selling my home, I ended up in a dual agency situation with my re-max listing agent. After having had the home listed for 5 1/2 months and having 3 escrows fall (and had encountered more realtor mistakes than any one I know), I fully expected that the 4th escrow which was dual agency would fall and I would be done with the six month contract with that agent & would move on.

So I was very surprised that the agent pulled it off. I stood fairly firm in not lowering the price to his suggestion. I felt that all his supposed negotiating skills were used against me. But the lucky guy got the house closed just in time and got a huge commission.

The buyers tried to flip the house -- they had done a tremendous amount of upgrades and had the house back on the market 4 months after close at $200,000 more than they paid. They weren't successful in selling it and neighbors tell me that they are now occupying the home.
I think that with dual agency, you should probably hire an attorney to represent your interests, because your listing agent will not be doing that.
Good luck
Susan

The agent I used for the sale of my ho use was also the agent I used for the purchase of my new one. The dealw e struck for the sale of my house was that I would pay her 3% if I brought in a buyer, and she represented both, 4% if she brought in a buyer, and represented both, and 5% if the buyer used their own agent. As it turned out, our agent did find the buyer, and represented both.

When she represented us and only us in the purchase of my house, she was wonderful. Always available, always kept us updated on everything, and very much the buyers agent. Unfortunately, when she represented both us and the buyer on the purchase of the house I was selling, she was still very much the "buyers agent". She neglected to call me back numerous times, never updated me on the progress of the purchasers attempts to get a mortgage,(even though there were 2 previous buyers that couldnt get a mortgage) and even set up an appointment with us at her office at 730 in the morning which she forgot about and didnt have the paperwork that we were there to sign.....It was a nightmare, and in this case, she absolutely didnt earn our part of the commission. I would never again deal with an agent in a dual agent situation-even if I was saving money....

Thanks everyone for your responses. I do feel that my new agent will represent me.

Re: FSBO - I did not go with an agent to do only the paperwork...I want all the credibility and increased market that going with MLS and an established company brings. In a buyers market as we know, FSBO can be a bear.

Huggl002 - Perhaps when your agent was brining in the buyer, she felt that she had to court and hand-hold the buyer as that buyer is the unknown and the more tenuous part of the transaction, rather than the seller who is the more stable part of the transaction. Don't know.

Thanks everyone, keep the advice coming in!

susan_2006 said

>>I think that with dual agency, you should probably hire an attorney to represent your interests, because your listing agent will not be doing that. IMO, you should hire an attorney to give you LEGAL advice, because no matter whether you have a dual agency situation or not, your agent is not able give you legal advice, only real estate advice.

~Hannah

Our listing agent is also a dual, but she does it a little different. She will stay with us while the buyer would go to her husband who is also licensed. I don't have a problem with this because she is the main bread winner of the family, and I've seen her in action. This is her bread & butter and she seems to know she will get more business with a happy customer then an unhappy seller.

I'm pretty easy going but if need be, will stick up for us if I had to. We killed the last deal back in 1999 because the realtor we had then did not have our best interests. He was willing to lose the deal over $1,500.00. When I look back at it now, there were things he could have done on our behalf to make the deal go through.

Im not quite sure why you felt the need to say this when he was asking about dual agency? The bottom line is, YOU decide what offers you will accept. As a dual agent, your agent has to maintain a fiduciary relationship with both sides. He cannot tell the buyer your bottom line, (which he probably doesnt even know) and he cannot tell you the buyers max (which he probably doesnt know either). You have nothing to lose. If you don't like the offer, you turn it down. If you don't offer dual agency, you have just limited one more place your offer could come from.

I don't understand what I have in bold. When we listed with our agent, we told her what we wanted to walk away with. Since we are using her to buy, she knows how much we want to spend. So in our case, and probably a lot of others, yes, our agent knows our bottom line; doesn't make sense for her not to. Same as if we are buying, if I'm putting an offer in on a house, I've already discussed with her when we walked through what I thought about the price. She knows I come home and zillow, so I know what someone paid for it.

Yes, knowing what someone pays for something usually doesn't matter, a house sells for what someone thinks it's worth; but in one case, I looked at a house for $355,000 (IIRC); the house was poorly laid out (I've mentioned it before in other posts) - I came home & Zillowed to find the owner only had it a year and paid $20,000 more then what he was asking as he's had to lower the price a few times. After I walked it, they ended up taking it off of the market. To me, the house wasn't even worth what he was asking. Had I not seen the zillow, he would have been really insulted at my offer if I did like it.

limoncello: IMO, you should hire an attorney to give you LEGAL advice, because no matter whether you have a dual agency situation or not, your agent is not able give you legal advice, only real estate advice.

Absolutely. I say this over and over - spend the money on a good real estate attorney. It isn't very much in the scheme of a real estate transaction and can save you hundred of thousands of dollars and untold misery in the long run.

In some states, attorneys are necessary and required, in many states where standard contracts are used attorneys are seldom needed.
Dual agency in some states is the mandatory fallback position for a company when they have the buyer and seller. It used to be that way here, but is not authorized in my state any more.
When it was mandatory here, I performed many transactions and never had a problem working it and getting it closed to the satisfaction of both buyer and seller.