Procuring cause is an industry term that describes the ability of any agent
who showed a buyer a home to claim that they should be paid if the buyer
eventually wants to buy that home.

Many buyers get "married" to agents who show them a property without ever
knowing it. Charlie and Meg Bear, of Acton, Massachusetts, are like many
buyers in today's market. When they started house-hunting, they went to the
Internet. Click ... they found a house to see; click ... they sent a request
to the listing agent. At the second house they saw this way, the agent who
showed them the house disclosed that he was a "buyer's agent." He was the
husband of the listing agent. Charlie did not want a buyer's agent who was
married to the listing agent. "This disclosure is not a contract" was clearly
on the form. Meg signed the form; Charlie did not.

Time went by. Charlie and Meg hired Connie LeDuc of Authentic Home Buyers
Brokers in Southborough, MA. When they eventually decided to make an offer on
that home they saw through the Internet, confusion reigned. The "buyer's
agent" did not want Connie to represent Charlie and Meg on his wife's listing.
The listing agent, his wife, was all for getting this home sold to the Bears,
but her husband insisted that he was their "buyer's agent." After much
negotiation between the brokers, the Bears bought their new home.

"Potential homebuyers who attend open houses or view properties with the
listing agent, or a licensee working for the listing agency, may forfeit their
opportunity to have full representation," said John Sullivan, President of
NAEBA . "To have 100% representation 100% of the time, homebuyers should have
a written agreement with an exclusive buyer's agent that spells out the duties
and obligations of both parties before looking at any home."

What did Charlie and Meg Bear learn from their experience? "People like us
don't know they should find their agent before they find their house," says
Charlie.

Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

This information is from a press release of the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents http://naeba.org Reprinted here by Ann Arbor's buyers real estate company: http://buyersagentannarbor.com