I think REAs are often stuck in a hard place. For them to do the absolute best for their client, they sometimes need to be less than completely forthcoming with buyers, and for them to secure the sale sometimes they need to be tactful and persuasive with clients to steer them in a certain direction towards a sale result. It's really not possible to be 'ethically' perfect for both sides, in every situation, every time. This is no different to the auctioneer of the day. The best ones certainty won't stop pushing the bids higher after they know they have passed the reserve, but rather will add fuel to the heightened emotions of bidders to get their every last cent. They have a responsibility to the seller who has engaged them in good faith that they will do everything possible to get them the best result. Business is often a tough game, to say the least. Opinions?
That's why, IMO, it is good to have a selling agent working for the seller and a buyers agent working for the buyer. This eliminates the conflict of interest issues that a selling agent has when trying to represent a seller but trying to be seen to be also helping a buyer, and in the end, only ends up helping him/her self.
Or people can educate themselves. No different from buying anything else. I walk into a car yard, the person who serves me is unlikely to be the owner of the business/franchise and can almost guarantee will not be the CEO of the car company but will be the salesperson/agent representing the car for sale and will be pushing their product. So in this scenario the person I am talking to is representing the car yet people have a better understanding of this than an agent representing a property. I see not COI with a sellers agent the same as the car sales person representing the car, or am I missing something here @Propertunity ? I understand your COI with my thoughts but If people are to thick to understand this simple concept of who pays the persons bills then yes maybe they should spend money for a BA as again the BA only gets paid once you buy (COI?). BA have their purpose, if someone is looking at buying a property in another state/country perhaps or are time poor. However if a BA is going to charge $10,000 for a $500,000 purchase (2%) I could fly to the town (will pick Brisbane) and spend a week looking around ($3,000 including flights/accom + $2,000 'salary' for the week) I am still $5,000 better off. Even if I couldn't find a place in that time, when I found something of interest I can still make many day flights to Brisbane for inspections if required or better yet you just put in clauses to get you out if it looked good online so reduce the expenses of flying up for no good properties.
