I think my real estate agent violated her fiduciary duties to me

[Frances Beier]

I am selling my investment property. After two days on the market, my realtor advised me to not go under contract with an offer that was $25K over asking and a had one-day inspection contingency. She said that our house had double the number of usual showings for our area of town and that we could expect more offers. She also said she had convinced the buyer’s agent to do a pre-inspection instead, because we did not want to be tied down by an inspection contingency.

Two days later, my agent informed me that the prospective buyer had paid for and conducted the inspection. But then he ghosted his real estate agent, even though there was nothing of concern noted on the inspection report. This seemed odd that the buyer would not even communicate with this agent, but not impossible. My realtor assured me the house was not stale.

The next day, an offer at asking with a four-day inspection contingency materialized. All of a sudden, my realtor was in a real rush for me to accept the offer. In 48 hours, we had gone from “the house is not stale” to “it is now or never.” I wanted to wait for other offers; she was adamant that I take this offer. We had a huge blow out. And, it was clear that I could no longer expect my real estate agent to prioritize my transaction.

Faced with the reality that my real estate agent was unlikely to do much more for me, I decided to cut my losses and sign the contract. That is when I realized that the weaker offer was from buyers represented by an agent from the same brokerage as my agent and that my agent had been able to steer the buyers to his preferred lender. (The first offer was for a buyer who was already approved by someone else for a VA loan, which my agent has indicated in the past she dislikes because they are more time consuming.)

The whole thing stinks to high heaven. I still signed the contract because contractually I am obligated to my agent for six months, and I was certain that if raised the concerns above I could not trust her to do much to push the sale of my home.

But I am wondering if, after the sale goes through, I should take any actions to determine whether my agent violated her fiduciary duties to me. Should I reach out to the original buyer’s agent to find out if he can corroborate my agent’s version of events? Is there anything else I can/should do?