real estate coaching - buyer agency agreements

July 12, 2024

Presenting the Buyer Agency Agreement with Rock-Star Confidence

As agents across America get ready for the new Buyer Agency deadline in August, we are facing a ton of questions about how to approach this conversation with buyers without scaring them off.

It comes down to having confidence in your value, but even more importantly, having confidence in the delivery of your Buyer Agency agreement.

Don’t Use Your Board’s or Association’s Forms

While many real estate boards and associations have forms for agents to use, I highly recommend creating and using your own forms. One of the reasons that the National Association of REALTORS® landed up in so many lawsuits is because they attempted to practice law when they shouldn’t have. The truth is, do not listen to your board when it comes to anything dealing with the law:

In our state associations, they aren’t very good at knowing the law. They aren’t lawyers, which is clear in the last year as they have faced more lawsuits and settlements than ever before because NAR crossed the line.
No other association teaches their members any legal things, because that isn’t what these associations are for. They aren’t there to be your legal representative or give legal advice.

The reason why you don’t want to use the form created by a board or association, if they get sued because of some error or illegality on the form, every member of that association will also be held liable because they were using the form that the association is being sued for. If you want to disassociate yourself from any possible future legal lawsuits, do not use forms from your board or association.

Creating Your Own Forms

Now, there will be forms that you must use, for example, the ones to put your listing into the MLS, but all other forms should be your own. When creating your own forms, you can tweak an existing form and customize it for your own business. You can remove any logos that you don’t want on the form and add your own, though I suggest you work with your broker on the form to ensure that any brokerage branding information or terms are included. If you want to be sure that your forms are legally sound, contact your lawyer (or a lawyer in your network) to look them over.

Getting Confident in Presenting the Buyer Agency Agreement

One of the biggest problems agents face isn’t the form itself, but in the delivery. For many agents, using a Buyer Agency Agreement is a new concept, and they don’t have the confidence to present this agreement to the buyer. When you’re talking to the buyer and presenting the agreement, your fee, and how you get paid, and if you’re humming and hawing over the verbiage because you aren’t used to presenting this, the buyer will notice your insecurity and that’s going to impact the whole conversation. This is why you shouldn’t use any form you aren’t comfortable with.

Imagine you have a legal form like California’s, which has a 5-page document filled with legalese and you are asking your buyer to read 168 lines of text for 30 minutes. That probably doesn’t sound appealing to you, and guess what? It doesn’t sound appealing to your buyer either — you’re going to lose that buyer by page 2. They won’t want to work with you, and they’re going to run from your office and not look back. You need to understand the form, and you need to help them understand the form, which means you need to know it well enough to explain it and answer questions. That’s how you develop confidence to present the form and engage your buyers.

The Takeaway

There is a lot of confusion and concern surrounding the Buyer Agency Agreement, and some agents might even find the idea downright scary. It doesn’t have to be, though, its just a matter of outlining expectations and securing a commitment from your buyers so that everyone is on the same page. Know and communicate your value, and get confident in explaining it to your buyers. Keep it simple, and when you have confidence in you, so will your buyers!

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