Now here for sure are some muddy waters - that exact point is commonly misunderstood. Indeed, the selling broker is hooked in tandem with the seller. Though he is committed to get as much ethically out of the property as possible, nevertheless his pricing is tempered by the knowledge that if the selling price is unreasonably high there will be fewer offers, and maybe none at all. All efforts to move this property will eventuate in nothing, while more moderately priced real estate continues to move. In the end the listing will only fruitlessly expire. But the valid point here is that even so, the selling agent s sympathies lie with his client, the seller. He truly is a proper agent for the owner.

But how about the buyer s agent? Is he also agent for the seller or maybe a subagent? Well, more often than not the buyer s agent does not know the seller, has never met him. But he has met warmly with the prospective buyers and they have retained his services . They ve given him a job to do with promise of reward.

True, it is usually the seller that will eventually pay the salary of this buyer s agent, but the oath of fidelity, confidentiality, strict accounting, obedience to legal instruction - these are to his actual client, the buyer. In fact, the canons of professional ethics will call for the buyer s agent to keep the buyer informed of problems material to the endeavor he is making to buy such real estate. And this code of ethics will not stipulate that the buyer s agent should keep the seller informed in this way, at least unless there is dishonesty involved or bad faith.

It would indeed be a serious breach of fiduciary ethics should the buyer s agent think himself the agent for the seller and report to him what he has heard in confidence with his clients. It has even been reported that the average buyer is of the mind that his agent is employed on his behalf, not the seller s. And is it not true that only when and if the buyer buys the house that the seller is able to sell, then the seller must pay a commission, whence the agents are paid? You could look at it this way - it is actually the buyer s money that pays the commission, and merely goes through the hands of the seller.

Considering all of this, would it not be most inordinate that the seller would have two agents looking after his interests and the buyer has none? So, just as the commission is produced through buyer funds, so the buyer s agent truly works with and for the buyer.