A Twist on Buying a Home Using the Listing Agent

Buying a home using the listing agent is a rookie move.

Are you thinking about buying a home using the listing agent? Sometimes buyers in Sacramento arrive at this silly thought process through desperation and not necessarily through dishonest intentions. Especially in our present market of low inventory in Sacramento. Stats from our trade association says buyers typically have to write two offers to buy a home, meaning they are successful 50% of the time on average, and I’m just thankful those odds do not constitute my professional experience. If a buyer loses out on a home, often the buyer blames her buyer’s agent.

Is it the buyer’s agent’s fault? Depends. Did the buyer’s agent suggest a strategy the buyer ignored? A strategy that would have resulted in the buyer purchasing the home? Then it’s the buyer’s fault for not trusting and listening to her agent, and let me add if you, as a buyer, do not trust nor listen to your agent, what in the hell are you doing working with that agent? Agents are a dime a dozen in Sacramento, and perhaps you should find an agent you do trust and respect. Without trust and respect you have no fiduciary relationship and, without fiduciary, you are doomed.

In these types of situations, sometimes buyers think about a buying a home using the listing agent because they think the listing agent will give them an edge. What kind of edge, you may ask? Information about the seller, mostly. Or they think the listing agent will compromise her ethics because we’re all just snakes in the grass anyway, and will do anything to get paid both sides of the commission. There are a few snakes in the grass in this profession, especially the hot bed of snakes in Orange County (JK), but I prefer to call them unsupervised. For the most part, unethical listing agents are few and far between. Plus, ethical listing agents make up the majority and won’t share personal information about the seller anyway.

I read a series of comments on a public website, generated by a prospective buyer about buying a home using the listing agent. That buyer’s take was agents who say it’s not a good idea to use the listing agent are liars. Further, the elephant in the room is that buyer also believes a listing agent will screw over her seller in order to accommodate the buyer’s offer, which is against the law. That’s a messed-up and confused buyer. Yet it goes to show what some buyers erroneously believe. One bad apple does not rot the entire tree.

Much as I may rally on about why buying a home using the listing agent is sort of a stupid and pointless idea, I have yet another twist that recently came to my attention through an unsolicited email. A buyer wrote to ask about a dual agency situation. Apparently the buyer had decided that buying a home using the listing agent would give him an advantage. This was a fixer upper the buyer intended to later flip. The listing agent made a future listing a contingency of the purchase, of all things.

Yes, you read that correctly. Allegedly, the listing agent, as a condition of dual agency, forced the buyer sign a side addendum promising to pay a certain percentage of commission and promising to list the home through that agent when the buyer was later ready to sell. Seems to be in direct violation of the Realtor Code of Ethics, which states the agent must put the interests of the parties above her own. But perhaps that agent was not a Realtor. Not every agent is a Realtor and there are differences between real estate agents and Realtors. Moreover, it most likely violates California real estate law, on top of a possible breach of fiduciary with the seller.

My advice to buyers in Sacramento is don’t look at hiring the listing agent. A competent buyer’s agent will extract MORE information about the seller from the listing agent than you EVER will anyway. Great agents have skills you don’t. There is no advantage. And I say that as a top listing agent in Sacramento who consistently closes a phenomenal number of sales. Find the very best buyer’s agent, an agent with a long track record of providing superior negotiation skills, and you’ll be light year’s ahead of yourself. If you need a sharp Sacramento buyer’s agent, I can suggest a few. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.