Are Selling Agents Representing Their Clients or Are They Getting Greedy?

I put that verbage in my listings for 2 reasons.  1) I'm not okay doing the work of a buyer's agent and then having my seller pay them.  My seller is paying good commission, and I don't want them paying $1000's of dollars to somebody who didn't do anything.  2) Protection for myself.  If I show the home to a represented buyer, how easy is it for me to violate WA laws of agency as they relate both to my seller and this represented buyer.

I have no problem working WITH another agent.  The last home I sold the buyers wanted to swing back by and get some measurements for flooring.  The other agent was out of area and didn't want to make the 1hr+ drive to give them 10 min of measuring time.  I have no problem opening the door then. 

What I have a problem with is lazy folks getting their real estate license, having listing agents do their work for them, then making the seller pay a selling office commission to an agent who didn't do anything. 

When I see that comment, I don't think that the agent is difficult to work with, I think that they're doing everything they can to protect their sellers' dollars.  Remember, buyers don't see those comments.  So if I'm a buyer and I want to see a home, and I call my agent and he says that this particular home isn't an option because he won't get paid if the buyer goes and looks at it without the agent, I dump that agent in a heartbeat and move on to an agent who will be at all my showings, be at my inspections, and do the job I hire them to do.

If a buyer wants to see the house badly enough, they can call the listing agent and get into a dual agency situation.  In that case I can potentially discount my commission to my seller and pass those savings on to the buyer.

I hear your point, and have gone around on this before with others, but to me it's lazy buyer's agents who are creating the need for this.  Think about the verbage.  In essence, what is being said is, "You won't get paid fully if you don't do your job.  If I have to do your job for you, I'm going to charge you 25%."  What other profession allows you to still collect 75% of your paycheck for doing only part of your job?

Amen Matt T. 

I listed a home and showed to several buyers after each said they were not represented.  One liked the home and after emailing questions / answers back and forth with me for a week, they decided to make an offer.  That's when another agent called to say she'd been working with them for 2 years to try an find a home.  Funny, the buyers never mentioned this.  My clients were furious and rejected the offer from the other agent unless her buyers paid me 1% of the sale price as a commission for doing their agent's job.  Needless to say the other agent and buyer argued over this for 2 days until another offer came in and was accepted by my clients. 

What goes around comes around.  And to believe me, I know how fortunate I was to have clients like this.

I don't put that verbage in - but if it was a constant in my area I would. I have often gone out to several showings with the same client only to hear from their "agent" last minute saying they were writing up an offer and them never having even been in the property! Didn't help that they were also rude on the phone like I was putting them out of their way to draw up papers! I have even written offers for Buyers and included the "agent" What kind of representation is the Buyer getting?! I regularly find myself doing the work of the Buyer's "so-called" agent. Why shouldn't people get paid in measure of their effort? You have put me on to a new thought.

Scott, I don't use the comments myself, but I certainly don't feel a listing agent that does is either greedy or difficult to work with.

Matt is right on, if you expect to get a paycheck, you should earn it.

If I here "Can you show us this listing? Our agent can't show it to us because he/she has to work (at their real job) today"  I'll light my cell phone on fire! lol