The Real Estate Agent: For Whom Does He Work?

Your Real Estate Agent: For Whom Does He Work?

⚠️ This isn’t a warning against real estate agents in general. It’s a warning against a reflex we import without realising it — habits picked up in our home country, or in a previous country of expatriation, that we take for granted… but that don’t necessarily carry over.

How does it actually play out? A cascade of real-life stories!

Here’s a « long » slice of expat life… one that will help you realise that under the single label « Real Estate Agent », very different situations exist — and it essentially comes down to a question of legislation.

It starts in Canada

When we bought our house in Toronto, Canada, our agent (recommended by friends) worked for us 100% — that’s precisely what we were paying her for. She combed the market, the whole market, not just her own listings, negotiated in our interest, flagged the weak points of a property, and sometimes pushed us NOT to buy if she sensed a bad deal.
This was back in the 1980s, and it only took our lawyer a few days to put the sale file together. A real surprise for French buyers used to « endless » delays 😉

Back in France

Once in France, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me that things could work any differently. Visiting a few estate agencies, all we got was a catalogue to flip through and pick from…
So, drawing on our Canadian experience, I chose an agent I had a good feeling about and asked her to « hunt » a house for us. Whether it came from her own catalogue or from anywhere else — that was NOT my problem — and if she found the house of my dreams elsewhere, well, 50% of a commission always beats 100% of nothing.
In the end, I spotted a house online myself, sent her the link… I won’t bore you with every detail, but the house was no longer for sale — except my agent happened to know the owners… and we spent the next 12 years in a truly exceptional home 😉
I had « invented » (or reinvented) the name for something that could actually be requested — you just had to ask for it explicitly — property hunting. As you’ll see, this doesn’t work the same way in every country; in some, it’s simply THE rule.

Retirement getting closer… next stop, Portugal!

We arrived in Portugal.
Back to the rule we already knew from France: it’s the listing agent who calls the shots.
Wiser from experience, we visited a few agencies and settled on José, an agent who’d worked in Switzerland and spoke good French. We explained how we wanted to work, and he played along. He went hunting knowing exactly what to look for.
He worked « his networks » — but that’s his job, not ours.
He found us the house we still live in today — it wasn’t even in his own listings, it belonged to another agent, and the two of them simply sorted out the commission between themselves.
The secret: set the rules of the game from the very start, and don’t let yourself be strung along.

Why it matters to have YOUR OWN agent

Why it can be useful — even critical — to have your own dedicated agent, whether you’re buying or selling.
And why this can vary from one country to another.
It seems every possible arrangement can exist out there — better to know that going in.
But you can also shift the lines a little, provided you set the rules of the game from the start.
That said, some countries regulate this profession quite differently — this is the moment to go read the detailed fact sheet for how it works in your country of choice.
The most important thing is knowing FOR WHOM the agent actually works — given the sums involved, and who pays the commission, the scales can tip easily to one side or the other… not necessarily yours!

Still have doubts?

And if the slightest doubt remains (hidden defects in real estate are countless, and when you’re not « in the trade » they’re often hard to spot)… before you commit, remember that a hundred euros spent bringing in a civil engineer or an independent building professional — someone who’ll actually work FOR you, hiding nothing — could well spare you some serious, costly, and sometimes irreversible trouble down the road.

Fiche Portugal

Fiche Espagne

Fiche Italie

Fact Sheet – Portugal

Fact Sheet – Spain

Fact Sheet – Italy

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