Sorry… I’m not making myself clear. In the scenario I’m wondering about the buyer has an agent and wants to look at a house with a “For Sale by Owner” sign in the front yard. What does the agent do then?
Does that answer your question?
If not, I’ll elaborate…An agent can become a Buyer’s Agent upon executing an agreement. This document can include or exclude properties by price, geography, type (residential/commercial/land) or any other criterion you can define. It also has an effective date and an expiration date.
If the Buyer is just beginning a search, we usually write the agreement to be quite broad. Unless specifically excluded, ALL properties found by agent or Buyer are included. So if the Buyer sees a FSBO, he will notify me and I’ll take it from there. Same way if I find someone ready to sell who isn’t already listed somewhere and introduce him to my Buyer.
In case you’re wondering, if the Buyer doesn’t notify me and purchases the property outside of our agreement, either he pays the commission anyway, or he is likely to get sued for breach of contract, so this would be quite foolish. Any other agent who knowingly represented him would be committing fraud and would get no commission at all (or would have to give it up if it went to court).
Yep…sorry I missed it.