Steve Israel - President of the Buyer's Edge Company, Inc.

Letter to the Editor of Inman News with Regard to Agency Relationships and Residential Real Estate

February 17, 2012

Inman News wrote an extensive article about consumer confusion with regard to agency relationships in the home buying and selling process. Please read their article and then take a look at the following letter that Steve Israel wrote to the editor.

"Dear Inman News Editor,

This article hits on many of the problems related to agency relationships, but seems to skip over the most obvious solutions for Buyers and Sellers. There is a brief mention of Single Agency here and no mention at all of Exclusive Buyer Agency or Exclusive Seller Agency.

There are thousands of Exclusive Buyer's Agents covering territory all over the USA. The National Association of Exclusive Buyer's Agents (NAEBA) has been in existence for 20 years. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) provides the following definition of Exclusive Buyer Agency - "The practice of representing only buyers and never sellers in a transaction. The company never lists a seller's property and thus never has a seller as a client..." There are also Exclusive Seller’s Agencies operating throughout the marketplace. Many of these companies provide limited service packages (MLS listing only) or are happy to provide full services to a home seller.

Single Agency Firms agree to represent only one side of a transaction - period. They may in some cases represent a seller and in another a buyer, but will release one of those clients to be represented by an agent in another firm if they end up with a conflict that people are uncomfortable with.

Clearly the best option for consumers who are concerned about all of the conflicts is to work with an exclusive buyer's agency or exclusive seller's agency."

What is Exclusive Buyer's Agency?

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