Your Agent May Also Represent Other Buyers or Sellers

Your agent may be helping another buyer who wants the same home

When you work with an agent, you usually are not that agent’s only buyer. Your agent may show the same home to another buyer, and that buyer may decide to write an offer on it too. Another agent at Position may also be helping a buyer who wants the same property, even if the two agents do not know it yet.

Seeing a home first does not reserve it for you. If two buyers want it, each buyer may decide whether to make an offer, what price and terms to offer, and whether to keep negotiating. The seller decides which offer, if any, to accept.

Picture two buyers interested in the same house

• You tell your agent that you like the house and may make an offer.
• Another Position buyer—possibly working with your agent or another Position agent—likes it too.
• Both buyers are allowed to make their own decisions and submit their own offers.
• Your budget, motivation, bargaining position, and highest price are not handed to the other buyer.
• The seller, not the brokerage, chooses how to respond to the offers.

If you are selling, your agent may be helping other sellers too

Your home may not be the only property your agent or Position has for sale. Another seller’s home may appeal to some of the same buyers, just as stores can offer more than one product to the same shopper.

Your agent’s work for another seller does not guarantee that the homes will receive the same number of showings, the same offers, or the same result. Each property is offered according to its own seller’s instructions, price, condition, location, and terms.

What if Position represents the buyer and the seller in the same sale?

That is dual agency. It can happen because your individual agent is working with both the buyer and seller, or because one Position agent represents the buyer while another Position agent represents the seller. In either situation, the brokerage is legally representing both sides of that sale.

California allows dual agency when it is disclosed and the buyer and seller give the required consent. You should be told that Position represents both sides, and the agency relationship must be confirmed in writing for that transaction. Reading this explanation does not tell you that dual agency exists in every transaction.

Your agent cannot use your private bargaining information for the other side

If you are the buyer, the agent cannot tell the seller that you would pay more than you offered unless you give permission. If you are the seller, the agent cannot tell the buyer that you would accept less than your asking price unless you give permission.

The same protection applies to private information about your finances, motivation, bargaining position, or other personal facts that may affect price. At the same time, an agent must still disclose known material facts when the law requires disclosure. Confidential does not mean a material property fact can be hidden.

Your offer is not automatically confidential

Your agent must protect the confidential information you give the agent. But once your offer is delivered, the seller or listing agent may disclose that an offer exists or discuss its terms with other buyers unless everyone who must agree has signed a confidentiality agreement.

Do not assume the seller will keep your price or terms secret simply because your agent submitted them. If confidentiality matters to your strategy, talk with your agent before the offer is delivered.

Before you sign, ask the question in ordinary language

• Are you or another Position agent currently helping someone else pursue this same property?
• Is Position also representing the seller of this property?
• Will one agent work with both sides, or will different agents be involved?
• What information will you keep private for me?
• What changes in the way you can help me if Position represents both sides?

Acknowledgment and consent