I am using two realtors; one to sell and one to buy. Is that OK?

Factual Questions
1

A little background first. (sorry for the long story)

Realtor agent ‘A’ is a 65 yo woman that is a friend of my Mom, does not own a cell phone, divorced, and had a daughter my age that tragically died about 3 years ago.

Realtor agent ‘B’ is about 50 something, owns a cell phone, her husband works in my office, and she recently just sold the home of my boss.

They work in the same office and have known each other for years as realtor ‘B’ has been the office manager. I do not have any contract with either one of them.

The situation.

My wife and I are not in the market for a house. Let me restate that we are not and have not been actively looking for a house.

However, a unique house came on the market. It was distinctive enough that we thought we should take a look at it. So I gave agent ‘A’ a call so that we could view the house. We viewed the house two days in a row. The total time involvement for agent ‘A’ (and I am including travel time both ways for her, and the time to talk to the listing agent) is less than two hours total. Let me restate she has spent two hours of her life on this, that is it.

So if I buy the house agent ‘A’ has minimal time invested for a fairly good payday.

I decide that I will spread the wealth as it were and give realtor ‘B’ the shot at selling my house. She impresses me as hard working, competent, nice, a real go-getter. She does a market analysis of my house. Did I mention she actually owns a cell phone?

Time passes. (I am waiting for the owner to move out and/or drop the price, another story altogether)

Apparently agent ‘B’ says something to agent ‘A’ about me. Agent ‘A’ calls my mom. Mom calls me last night, tells me that agent ‘B’ better not be involved, and reminds me that agent ‘A’ tripped and hit her head in my Mom’s house this past week, is divorced, and that her daughter tragically died.

My questions:

Is it OK to use one realtor agent to buy a house for you and another to sell your existing home?

Do you have any suggestion for what to do now?

Do I owe anything to either agent?

My opinion:

Agent ‘A’ should be happy to get anything at all. She could have ZERO involvement if I should so choose. She has next to nothing in time involvement. However she somehow feels that she is ‘owed’ the whole deal. If she ahad been actively pursuing a house for us and had done research and showed us a bunch of homes then I would probably agree. But that isn’t the case and she is starting to piss me off.

2

My suggestion is to consider dropping both the matters of buying and selling. You apparently have too much personal, irrelavent matters tied up in this. Start fresh after a reasonable waiting time.

As far as the commission, sales people are paid based upon results not on the amount of time or effort expended. A sale could fall into their lap or be the result of months of hard work but the commission would usually be the same.

The amount of compensation is contractual, so if you wish to pay only what “you think she deserves”, you may need to get a smart lawyer to draw that up.LOL

3

Fair game… even better, play them off against each other.

Nope, not now, nor in the future.

4

I work in real estate, but in another state. Legally, it’s okay since it’s two different transactions and you are aware that the agents are from the same office. You could use two agents from two different offices if you wanted to.

5

It’s perfectly normal to use one realtor to sell your home and another to buy a different home. This is a VERY common procedure. It typically arises when you decide to go to Agent A to sell your home, and then find the perfect new home for you listed with Agent B.

Unless you’ve signed something, you have absolutely no legal obligation with Agent A. Moral obligation is a different question (and not really suited to this particular forum) but in my experience any realtor that makes you feel like you “owe” them something over such a trivial matter is of terribly poor character and hideously unprofessional. I normally deal with such realtors by never ever again speaking with them, and giving them a piece of my mind if they choose to call me up at home or the office, much the same way I deal with sleazy car salesmen.

6

We used a realtor as a “buyer’s agent” when we purchased our current house. That meant that the realtor was working for us, rather than for the seller, which is the usual practice.

At least in our part of the country, when you do this, the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent split the commission, which is nominally paid by the seller.

The advantage to us is that the agent has an incentive to close the deal on terms favorable to us, whereas the conventional seller’s agent is trying to maximize the price to the seller.

7

So the tragic death of a daughter three years ago is significant that it prevents that realtor for being involved, according to the other realtor, among other things?

Isn’t this comment of yours ringing alarm bells?

aahala’s comment is probably your best advice. Unless you can weather the personal minefield for years to come, walk away.

8

Ruok, I haven’t heard of a 'Realtor agent '…there are Realtors (Use a big R) & real estate agents. Realtors are the ones to use, real estate agents can pretty much say anything they want to–according to my local Realtor board person, but Realtors (ours do anyway) should have a local board listed in the phone book & have much higher ethics.

9

I’m under the impression the typical home sales commission is 6%. If there’s a sellers’ agent and a buyers’ agent, the split would be 3%/3%. For a $200,000 home, that’s $3000 to each. I’m seriously considering not using a buyers’ agent this time around. Lemme explain:

Back then, there was no master multiple listing service (MSL) online that I could find – every agency’s website had its own listing. That was a pain. The most important thing my buyers’ agent did was let me look at his MLS, and then report new listings to me. Later, all he did was bargain for me one time (and did okay), then told me where and when to close (and he was there, of course). For all of that, he got 3% of the sale. I’m not begrudging him his 3%; he earned it and did a good job for me, really. Legally my interest was his interest, but when you tell a guy his interest is in lowering his own commission, you kind of got to ask, “huh?”

Nowdays, though, it seems like the entire MLS is available at realtor.com. I’d miss the “by owner” listings, but I missed those the first time around anyway, and I don’t have time to track them all down. So, I don’t really need an agent to do that kind of footwork. Mostly what’s left is negotiation. That’s where it seems to make sense to work with just the sellers’ agent (considering you watch your own back, first, since the buyers’ agent won’t do that since he won’t exist). It seems like it would make the seller’s agent more motivated to bargain on the price. Given the $200,000 home I mentioned above, what’s a better commission: 6% of a final price of $180,000, or 3% of $200,000? FYI that’s $10,800 commission versus $6000. So assuming the house is okay and I’d buy it with or without a buyers’ agent, I’d be in a position to save a substantial amount of money as well as let the sellers’ agent earn substantially more.

Hmmmm… on that though, can a purchaser bargain with the sellers’ agent about their commission? You know: “I’ll buy right now for $200,000, and out of your $12,000 commission you’ll pay the $3000 closing costs.” And yes, I’m aware you can have the seller pay closing; I did so for my current house. I really mean the agent.

10

Thank you for your replies.

To clarify:

Agent ‘B’ is fully aware of my relationship, both personally & professionally, with agent ‘A’. Agent ‘B’ has no problem with the situation and is a good egg. I have no idea what she said, but she knows Agent ‘A’ will represent me for the purchase, no question. I have 100% faith in ‘B’, not so in ‘A’.

Agent ‘A’ I felt sorry for and I thought I was doing her a favor getting her involved because of what would be minimum time, maximum return. I have not told agent ‘A’ my involvement with agent ‘B’. And therein probably lies my problem. However, I feel Agent ‘A’ should have come to me first if she perceived a problem, not my mother.

I thought this was a reasonable way of doing two different deals. My mistake was not letting ‘A’ know that I am working with ‘B’. But ‘A’ shouldn’t assume that in the first place (should she?) and she certainly shouldn’t feel I owe her anything. My feeling is that she should be aware I could have selected anybody, but I chose her, she should be thankful she got half instead of NOTHING.

My conclusion:

I did nothing wrong legally, morally or ethically.

I should have skipped ‘A’ altogether. I should have used C, D, or E. That was my first mistake.

I should have fully disclosed to ‘A’ that I was using ‘B’ to sell my house. This was my second mistake. (But I never ever said that I would use ‘A’ to sell. ‘A’ never asked to sell it, she never offered to do a market study let alone offer to even look at my house)

In the future don’t do business with anybody that is associated with my parents.

11

My wife and I bought our house three years ago. At the time, it was the last good deal left in a highly desirable neighborhood during a skyrocketing local market. It was being used as a rental and the tenants didn’t wish to move, so they were VERY uncooperative about letting potential buyers in to see it (they wouldn’t even let anyone put up a “for sale” sign), which kept it from getting bid up. The house had become famous among all realtors we had talked to at various open houses.

We, of course wished to see it before making an offer. We went first with a very good and long-standing friend of my wife’s family. He made two appointments with the tenants, and both times (as they had done countless times previously to other agents), the tenants failed to answer the door when we arrived on time (there was every indication that they had either jsut left or were pretending to be out). He showed us some other properties in the same price range that were totally unacceptable, but which he nevertheless encouraged us to take.

We had not signed with him in any way, and began talking to another agent (and yes, we had been advised by several books that it was not the most friendly thing to do, talking to two different agents) who DID get us in to see the house and got the commission. My wife’s family friend hasn’t spoken to any of them since.

It’s a really touchy area getting family and friends involved in serious money transactions. Had we followed our friend’s advice, he would have gotten a commission, but we would have been locked into a house we didn’t like. You have a lot of money and years tied up in a real estate deal. Do whatever you think is best for you, because no one else, no matter how close to you, is going to do it as well.

12

ROFL. Yes, I know what you’re talking about.

My favorite expression on this is that money and blood don’t mix. Each time I have slipped and allowed personal and financial matters to blend together, I’ve ended up paying on both ends.

13

If you do ant/need to do business with family or friends, you should follow the rule that an artist friend of mine gave me:

“When doing business with family or friends, do it either at full cost or at no cost.”

The point being, either you do it as a favor, at a time and manner of your convenience, or you treat them just like any other customer. Anything in between (doing it for the cost of materials, at a discount, for a six-pack of beer, etc.) is guaranteed to cause problems.

14

I am a commercial real estate agent and a Realtor. The issue of time involved is not completely irrelevant to the individual deal, but it is by no means the entire picture either. Should a hardworking agent go to the seller if a house has not sold in a tough market and ask to $ 3,000 because of the 12 months of advertising, showing, prospecting etc etc etc. to no avail, and the agent has these costs out of pocket? It’s interesting how the all or nothing production based commission model is perfectly acceptable to sellers if the house does not sell because they do not have to pay a nickle despite the agent spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars in man hours and expenses marketing the the listing, but if a sale occurs quickly it’s amusing how quickly the sellers want to calculate a time sheet.

Agent “A” sounds like a marginal and unprofessional agent. That she would be sharing office gossip or personal agent to agent conversations with your mother is stunningly unprofessional and could get her fired. Since you are in the mix with agent “A” on the first house take that matter to conclusion of sale or not. Whether you like her or not at this point she does have a valid claim to a commission on the house she showed you. Beyond that IMO you should use another agent or 'B" for looking further.