Posts Tagged ‘agency’
What is Agency in Real Estate?
In Real Estate, Agency Matters!
When you consider buying or selling a home in Charlotte, you might contact and interview real estate agents and Realtors to help you. Before you go too far in those conversations, you need to know about a term called “agency.”
Agency begins when a home is listed for sale by a real estate agent or a Realtor. The seller of the home hires the agent’s firm to represent them in matters related to selling their home. Notice I said they hire the firm, not the agent. While they do work with the specific real estate agent, they actually hire the real estate firm. Much like hiring an attorney, when you hire an attorney the entire firm is hired to represent you.
When you consider this in its entirety, this means that a seller that has hired a firm with 100 real estate agents actually has 100 agents representing their interests. This brings along the concepts of confidentiality and allegiance. Every one of those agents are bound by law to protect and serve the interests of their clients. When you think of it that way, a seller has an entire army of agents in charge of selling their home.
From the start, all real estate agents and Realtors automatically represent the seller. If a home buyer walks in to buy a home and has not hired an agent to represent them, the agent they speak to is responsible to the seller. This means anything a buyer says can and WILL be used against them in negotiating. That is, unless the buyer has specifically hired that agent to represent them.
There are many dynamics that can occur such as exclusive buyer agency, dual agency and more. These take the agency idea into many different directions, which I will try to explain in future posts. However, one thing you should know before you say anything to a real estate agent is to be careful what you tell them (unless you have signed a contract and hired them.) Regardless of being a seller or buyer, if you provide a real estate agent with information about you can be used against you in negotiations in future dealings.
How can information from a simple interview be used against you? Lets examine this. Read the rest of this entry »