Yes the agent does have a fiduciary obligation however that agent does work for and is employed by the seller. The obligation implies that the agent shall advise the seller, however the agent cannot make decisions that are against the wishes of the seller. I think your assumption about the agents ignoring the rules is incorrect.
Think about it…. why would ANY agent not want maximum exposure for a listing. Try to understand, agents make money on the churn and holding a home off the MLS makes no sense.
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Let’s think about the possibilities.
First off when an agent takes a listing on the listing agreement the seller can instruct the agent NOT to put it on the MLS. If it is not on the MLS it will not be online anywhere. When this occurs the agent must actually send in a document to SDAR saying the home will not be on the MLS.
Second even if the agent is instructed to put the home on the MLS, when you enter the listing on the MLS there is a field that you can select to either allow or not allow the listing to be farmed out to third party providers such as Redfin, Zillow, SDLookup….In this case the listing will get MLS exposure but not third party exposure.
Third… as noted some sites will advertise contingent listings but not pending listings. Sometimes agents will actually move a listing into withdrawn status when the short sale package is being reviewed by a lender. Why? I could not tell you why, but I have seen it happen more then once. If any of these properties are withdrawn you will not see them as well.
Fourth… again, not my cup of tea but I have seen agents put a property directly into pending even though it is still contingent. Why? Could not tell you but I have seen it happen. I have had buyers I work with instruct me to ASK the sellers to put the property into pending status on a short sale rather then contingent status as well simply to help reduce the amount of backup offers that short sale may receive.
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The bottom line is that it is VERY easy for you to find out if your thoughts are true or not. You can list the street name here and any of us can call the listing agents to see and find out the truth, or you can ask your realtor to call and find out. I know it is always easiest to blame the realtors but perhaps doing a bit of legwork prior to throwing out blame would be justified.
