Regarding my father-in-law, I am also having difficulty to understand him. But there is a reason behind this. He works with the commercial realestate property mainly like a factory, office building for his daily job. He sells/buys big ones and maintains properties he deals with. In addition, he is also a licensed realtor/broker for residentials, but never practiced before [he has a license, but no experience for residential property] He simply does not want to be involved in a complicated transaction.
Regarding the realtor I talked to. I told the lady that I would like her to represent us only for the houses I find on the resale market incuding the ones I already found. She basically said, it is waste of her time if I decide to choose to buy a new house and use my in-law as my broker. Then, she told me that she only works for me only if I exclusively choose her as my realtor. Honestly, I understand what she is saying and agree that it was not fair to her.
The problem is that I need to include my in-law if we decide to purchase a new home because it is simple fact that he can give us back his broker commission. 3% commission excluding tax etc is very big for us.