When an offer was made on our house and the buyer did not have their own agent, we agreed to dual rep.

During our home inspection our buyer's father asked the agent if she could get them in to see another house on our street that had recently been listed. (the buyer's parents never liked our house)

Our agent made some calls about the other house during our inspection and proceeded to take our buyer and his parents over to the other house immediately following our inspection.

The inspection did not reveal anything horribly wrong with our house (even the realtor and the inspector said so). The buyer seemed fine with the condition of our house but backed out of the contract two days later and is now under contract for the other house.

We feel that it was ethically wrong for our realtor to take our buyer to see another house immediately following our home inspection-much less make calls to arrange it during our inspection.

Any thoughts/advice/opinions?

The agent performed her duties. Her job isn't to force people to choose your house over one that is better suited to them. This isn't unethical, especially if she didn't proactively try to change their minds.

Even if you think she showed the home due to greed, she'd have been getting full commission anyway, it doesn't make sense for her to force them into another home when one is already under contract.

Those people were going to go to the other house with or without your agent.

I might even venture to say that since the agent had a dual agency (meaning a fiduciary relationship with the other party as well as you) she was obligated to show the other property.

Oh the dreaded PARENTS. When I hear the parents are coming, I know the deal is dead---almost every time.

Oh, you are SO right! They are worse than any home inspector I've seen.

I would always ask if the buyers were going to be seeking advice from parents or anyone else in the transaction. I would definately ask this for young first-time buyers. If the answer is yes then get the parents involved immediately in the looking process. The parents appreciate this and it saves problems later.

Hmmm, "if you can't beat em, join em". Not a bad idea.

Particularly with first time buyers, and even sometimes on future purchases, parents are a source of down payment and/or closing cost money. I would do nothing to discourage their presence, in fact I would act as if they were buying the house themselves!

I have a listing now, everytime I show it, the owners act as if I'm not supposed to show them anything else. But then they also think that no matter what objections they raise, I'm supposed to overcome them as if they aren't buying one of the biggest investmemts of their lives. Such as "they prefer a house where they can walk to the beach." "Did you tell them they can drive there? That's what we do."

I am sorry to tell you, but it doesn't sound like your agent has done anything wrong. I know it might seem like you are getting stabbed in the back, but that is not the case. You are not the agent's only client. They work with other clients too. It sounds to me like you want an agent to work for you and only you, even if it has to do with showing other homes nearby. Would you think the same way if the house down the street had an agent that brought buyers to your house and they decided they liked your house better? I bet you would think it was ok. We, as listing agents, represent you as our seller because of our fiduciary duty to you. If we happen to obtain another client other than you, we also have a fiduciary duty to them too. And like it was stated above, if the agent was greedy and didn't care, then they would have tried to keep the buyers in contract with you and he would have collected double the commission.

What the agent did WAS unethical not for any of the reasons above (I agree that she does have a fiduciary responsibility to her client), what was unethical was the fact that she cancelled a legal contract under the guise of "un-resolvable issues" found in the Home Inspection, when in fact the repairs may have been reasonable enough to have been repaired (or required on the line item in the contract stating "seller responsibility to correct defects up to $___ amount."), or money credited to the buyers for them to fix it. I think that you may seriously may have a case to getting their Earnest Money.

The only problem is that it would make your office pretty bad

I'm not sure if I missed something in the OP, but where does it say they cancelled the contract for unresolvable issues in the home inspection? I do believe the agent was rude but not unethical. (Promising I will put my reading glasses on next time if I read the OP wrong.)

First of all, the agent didn't cancel. The buyers did. An agent cannot force a buyer to go through with a sale if they want out. A judge on the other hand, could force a sale.

Second, at least on all the contracts I've ever seen, there are three options for a buyer to choose from after an inspection is completed:

-Go through with the sale and accept the property "as-is"
-Any items disclosed in writing by seller or found by an inspector can be repaired at the seller's expense
-Termination of contract if material latent defects NOT previously disclosed are found during an inspection.

Of course all contracts are different, and we don't know how exactly this particular contract was written or worded. We don't even know the entire situation at this point. It wouldn't be right, and it's probably close to offering legal advice, to make any recomendation other than to speak with an attorney.