Industry Secrets about Hiring and (Hopefully Not) Firing Real Estate Agents

I believe in good faith you are here to learn about your rights and how you can look forward to interacting with real estate professionals near you. For starters, you should be aware that any contracts between you and another real estate professional that surround representation and compensation were built for the real estate agent. Just like real estate purchase contracts were built for Buyers, these Buyer Broker Agreements (BBA) or Exclusive Right to Sell Agreements (ERS) are built for your agent. You're signing an agreement with a specific timeframe in a specific area or for a specific property, clarifying that such is exclusive, that you haven't done so with anyone else, and that you will keep your promise allowing this agent to sell your home or sell you a home.

This means that you also have certain performance obligations. For example, a seller is expected to sell their property in good faith in accordance with their agreement. This means that you can't just randomly decide to pull your home off the market or not accept an offer that is arguably meeting your needs. In Utah, this is more than theoretical. The Utah Association of REALTORS® Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Agreement states that if, during the listing period, the property is withdrawn from sale, transferred, conveyed, leased, rented, or made unmarketable by a voluntary act of the Seller without the written consent of the Company, the brokerage fee can become immediately due and payable.

The same form also addresses a ready, willing, and able Buyer at the listing price and terms. That does not mean someone can physically force you to sell your house; it means deciding not to proceed can still have contractual financial consequences depending on exactly what happened and what your agent and or broker chooses to do in response. Choose an agent that isn't going to sweat if something changes. If you need to make a different step, bring someone who can do that with you. You have to be able to say anything to your agent including discussing scenarios like this before deciding to hire them. I cannot tell you how often I approach Buyers and sellers who didn't work or mesh with their agent appropriately and it made for a situation that was supposed to feel like a win-win but looked painful from the outside looking in.

The length and scope of these agreements are negotiable.

In Utah's current Buyer Broker Agreement, the agreement has an actual end date and can be limited by county or even to specific properties. The best thing to do as a Buyer is to assign yourself a short agreement to try an agent out and if the agent doesn't like it then I guess you've learned pretty early how they react. The Utah Association of REALTORS® specifically explains that the term can be negotiated for one day, six months, or another agreed period. These agreements can be extended too. You do not inherently owe someone half a year of your life because they unlocked one front door for you.

Under the NAR settlement practice changes, REALTORS® working with Nuyers generally must have a written buyer agreement in place before touring a home with that buyer, whether the tour is in person or virtual. That does not mean you need an agreement merely to walk into an open house by yourself or to have an initial conversation with an agent about their services. NAR's own consumer guidance specifically distinguishes those situations.

Don't sign anything you don't understand. If your agent can't explain every line of your agreement then they don't know the agreements themselves.

There is actually law sitting behind my little "teacher" rant. Utah's administrative rules impose fiduciary duties on a licensee representing a client, including loyalty, obedience to lawful instructions, full disclosure of material facts, confidentiality, reasonable care and diligence, and safeguarding money or property entrusted to the agent.

Utah also requires the scope of the agency relationship to be established in writing. You are not hiring somebody exclusively to open Supra boxes and forward PDFs.

I'm going to tell you a story about a client of mine who worked with a real estate agent prior to meeting me, we'll call her Mikayla for anonymity. Mikayla was a sweet woman. She was a First-Time-Home-Buyer, a gal trying to get into graduate school, and buy a house finally. Mikayla and her family rented a one home for ten years with her parents. Pretty incredible, the landlord lucked out with them. I toured their place afterwards, zero maintenance and it was still pristine. Over $250,000 in rent payments over ten years, it's about time that she was able to become a homeowner.

Mikayla wanted something very specific. When Mikayla came to me she had a vision, and told me her current lender preapproved her up to $350,000 and you know in our market that wasn't getting her anything close to her vision. Mikayla wanted a property that featured a mother-in-law apartment. I didn't realize how important this was but she did and she kept to her guns about what she needed. This is worth talking about because first-time Buyers are operating in a particularly difficult market.

NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found that first-time Buyers represented only 21% of Buyers, the lowest share recorded since NAR began tracking the figure in 1981, and the median first-time Buyer had reached age 40.

Mikayla ended up revealing to me that she had signed an agreement with another real estate agent before meeting me and made it clear to that agent that she didn't feel like she was being served. "What about short sales or foreclosures?" Mikayla asked her agent one day, she tells me, and her agent turned to her and said, "You don't want to get involved with those, blah blah blah." We both knew at that moment that the amount of energy that her agent was putting into her goals had a limit and that's why their relationship wasn't working out. Mikayla told me she would contact me when it expired.

I am telling you this to get something across to you. People fail in their pursuit to build a team that helps them reach the highest shelf. Sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board, sometimes you have to force yourself to compare options, it isn't innate.

Mikayla contacted me several months later and we started off by touring properties together, going through the process, clarifying the requirements and the steps she needed to take for success. I was teaching her things every time we met, inside every property, and then we scheduled an in-person appointment with Temara at City Creek Mortgage.

Temara preapproved her with me in 20 minutes, we all sipped on Starbucks, and Mikayla didn't have to do anything on the computer to get the information she needed to assess her next steps. Insanely enough, Temara preapproved her for $100,000 more than her prior lender.

That difference is exactly why I tell people their lender is part of their team too. A preapproval is not a guaranteed loan and different lenders can use different processes, products, assumptions, documentation standards, and available programs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau actually recommends contacting at least three lenders and obtaining multiple preapprovals rather than assuming the first lender has identified every option available to you.

CFPB also notes that a preapproval does not commit you to using that lender. And comparison shopping is not just some neurotic Realtor behavior. CFPB estimates that homebuyers can potentially save roughly $600 to $1,200 per year by obtaining mortgage offers from multiple lenders. It also explains that multiple mortgage credit inquiries made within a 45-day window are generally treated as a single inquiry for credit-scoring purposes. Not always though, about pulling your credit, with AI you should be able to find three amazing programs and focus on those programs, instead of haphazardly applying with random lenders.

Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that roughly 73% of Buyers and over 80% of Sellers hire the very first real estate agent they interview.

Think about that for a second. People will spend six weeks reading reviews before buying a $900 television and then hand one of the largest transactions of their lives to the first real estate professional who answers the phone.

Mikayla and I went under contract three times together, she holds my record for the number of accepted offers. The third contract that we secured was a townhouse with a mother-in-law apartment. Mikayla was nervous, most Buyers don't jump from one real estate purchase contract to another. My brokerage was probably getting a little annoyed with how flippant this one was becoming, holding her earnest money.

I didn't care, in fact, I begged her to follow her intuition and cancel the second contract because I knew we had found what she needed and if I had to, I would knock on every door next to that one to get her the same product. It was a multiple offer situation and we closed it within a normal timeframe with a considerable amount of concessions.

This is just one of the many success stories I have taken part in, imagine what property she'd be in if she didn't work with me. Would she be in a property at all? I'll let you be the judge and the jury.

You can't really get out of a Buyer Broker Agreement (BBA) or Exclusive Right to Sell Agreement (ERS) without mutual termination. Your obligation is to the Broker of the Brokerage and not the Sales Agent, so I would go to the Broker and request a new "finger." Brokers are the hands and the real estate agents/sales agents are the fingers. Your contract is actually with the Broker so you would be required to escalate whatever you are having trouble with to your Broker first. Utah's Division of Real Estate has specifically clarified this point with listing agreements: the listing agreement is a legally binding contract with the Principal Broker of the brokerage, not simply with the individual sales agent whose face happens to be on the sign. When an agent changes brokerages, the agent cannot simply take that listing with them, for example, because your contract is the Broker.

The Buyer Broker Agreement works similarly in an important respect. Utah's UAR form names the Brokerage as a party, identifies the individual agent as an authorized agent for that Brokerage, and even allows the Buyer's Agent or Broker to appoint another agent within the Brokerage if the original agent is unavailable.

There are also actual UAR forms specifically titled Cancellation and Termination of the Exclusive Buyer-Broker Agreement and Agency Disclosure and Cancellation and Termination of the Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Agreement and Agency Disclosure. The existence of those forms is another reason I would tell you to stop treating cancellation like a breakup text and start treating it like what it is: the termination of a contract.

Otherwise, you can wait until the agreement expires or offer a % of the new agent's commission to the original Broker and Sales Agent you didn't want to work with as a compromise. I've seen this nontraditional transfer in practice but it requires everyone to be level-headed and cordial which is unlikely. This type of arrangement is a negotiated solution, not an automatic contractual right, and the exact agreement you signed controls the outcome ultimately.

It's hard to not take these things personal, it's hard to speak up for yourself too. Not to mention the fact that you're not supposed to be discussing representation with anyone except the agent you're in a contract with, so for legal reasons, I'm going to clarify that when Mikayla revealed her active Buyer Broker Agreement I promptly turned her away until said agreement was no longer in effect!

The REALTOR® Code of Ethics prohibits REALTORS® from interfering with another REALTOR®'s existing exclusive representation agreement, but it does not completely forbid a consumer from speaking to somebody else. Article 16 specifically says that when the client initiates contact with another REALTOR®, that REALTOR® may discuss the terms of a future agreement or even enter into an agreement that becomes effective after the existing exclusive agreement expires. What REALTORS® generally cannot do is go hunting for somebody else's exclusively represented client and knowingly undermine the existing relationship.

That difference matters. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to understand what happens when your agreement expires. You are allowed to educate yourself. The ethical restriction is principally on what the competing REALTOR® can solicit or do while another exclusive agreement remains in force, not some gag order preventing the consumer from ever speaking to another human being.

One last thing, these agreements have standard percentages that if aren't met become your financial responsibility at closing. And when I say "standard percentages," I need to put a giant asterisk next to that phrase because there is no legally established standard commission percentage. Real estate brokerage compensation is negotiable.

NAR's post-settlement rules specifically require compensation in a written Buyer agreement to be objectively ascertainable rather than open-ended, and the Utah forms themselves state in capital letters that brokerage fees are fully negotiable and are not set by law, a Board or Association of REALTORS®, or the MLS.

This is especially important for Buyers because Sellers are footing an expected commission with their agent that may or may not include a Buyer's Brokerage. Regardless, this Buyer's Brokerage commission is explicitly stated in your Buyer Broker Agreement and your Real Estate Purchase Contract aka "Offer" and if they don't match then you have a difference on your hands.

Utah's current Buyer Broker Agreement makes this painfully clear. The Buyer agrees to a specific brokerage fee. If the Seller, property owner, or Seller's Brokerage pays enough to satisfy that amount, it offsets the Buyer's obligation. If that outside compensation is less than the amount promised in the Buyer Broker Agreement, the form says the Buyer pays the remaining difference at Closing unless the Buyer and Company agree otherwise in writing. At the same time, the brokerage cannot collect more from all sources combined than the amount the Buyer agreed to.

The gap between the compensation in your Buyer Broker Agreement and the compensation that the Seller's Brokerage has offered with the Seller can become your problem if nobody discusses it with you. Is your agent going to overlook the difference or is it going to become another item on your closing statement to be paid as a Buyer?

I have never requested additional commission from a Buyer, maybe I will someday, but until then, you can expect that we're going to work together like best friends and if you're happy what's another half a percent to me? Pay me with a great review and your referrals, I'll overlook it, I'll always do my best to provide for myself but if the Seller puts their foot down who would I be to turn to a family of six and say, "So where's that other $2,000.00 I'm owed?" This is the reality.

And consumers increasingly need to understand this because the old shorthand of "the Seller pays both agents" no longer explains how the real estate industry functions. I really want the people I work for to see the world the way it is and not the way it is cutely presented to them. You make the best decisions when you have the right information and the real skinny on what you're dealing with and I've seen this in practice with my own eyes.

And despite everything I just told you, most people still use agents. NAR (2025) found that 88% of Buyers purchased through a real estate agent or broker and 91% of Sellers used one. Buyers reported wanting help finding the right property, negotiating terms, understanding the transaction and identifying things about properties they might otherwise miss. Among first-time Buyers, 76% credited their agent with helping them understand the process.

This isn't an argument against real estate agents. It is an argument against choosing one casually.

Most real estate agents are serving, they are great people, they are dedicated, they are smart, they are formidable; some will not hesitate to dig their heels in, to be bullish, and to even take things a little farther than you thought they could be taken. The good news is that you are in the driver's seat, choose a good co-pilot, you can interview and talk until you're blue in the face before you sign anything.

Get inspired, get excited, use your agent as a tool at your disposal, don't feel bad for them or treat this like something it's not. Don't apologize for wanting the best for yourself.

Interview them. Ask how long the agreement lasts and if it's flexible. Ask exactly where in your area the agreement applies. Ask what happens if you hate each other in three weeks. Ask who their Principal Broker is and what makes them formidable. Ask what the cancellation process looks like if you have those thoughts on a random Tuesday morning. Ask whether you could owe them money if a Seller doesn't cover their entire fee. Ask whether there is a protection period after the agreement expires. Ask whether they will reduce or waive a compensation gap. Ask what happens if your plans change. Ask who handles you if they go on vacation. Ask what they are actually going to do for you that somebody else won't.

A competent agent should not be frightened by informed clients. They should be creating them.

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Sydney Rosenblatt Utah Realtor® ABR® Presidio Real Estate®

c: +1 (702) 374-1447 e: Sydney@roserealtyutah.com