Real estate consumers who are sometimes subject to potentially conflict-laden practices in the industry known as “dual agency” and “designated agency” will no longer run that risk when working with a leading Chicago condo-specialty brokerage.
OwnACondo.com, with brand new headquarters scheduled to open Jan. 1, 2011 at 540 N. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, will now represent only condo buyers to best serve them.
“Our singular buyer focus allows us to provide the kind of truthful, refreshingly honest, highly biased and conflict-free customer service that has been sorely missing from the real estate business for a long, long time,” says Scott Siegel, OwnACondo.com’s managing broker.
Photo by Celal Teber
“Only an Exclusive Buyers’ Agent can show consumers all available properties in the marketplace without potential conflict,” Siegel explains. “Agents who take listings have a financial incentive to sell their own listings or listings from their office.”
In dual agency, the buyer and seller are represented by the same agent in the same transaction. In designated agency, the buyer and seller are represented by two agents from the same real estate company, one on each side of the deal.
Although neither activity is technically illegal in the industry (written disclosures are required for consumers when these situations are present), OwnACondo.com does not allow its agents to engage in either practice, thereby eliminating any hint of potential conflict.
“At OwnACondo.com, we don’t carry inventory, so we’ve got nothing to sell people,” says Siegel. “Everything we do, every step of the way, is geared toward ensuring that buyers are properly and professionally represented in the condo buying process. We are committed to representing the buyers of condos unlike any other firm in the marketplace today. Period.”
Siegel notes that people wishing to sell their condos will be referred to a trusted partner firm with whom OwnACondo.com has done business for years. Consumers will have the added assurance that a monitoring process is in place to guarantee no conflict can arise and that pre-existing and highly valued agent/client relationships will be honored.
OwnACondo.com has published an Exclusive Buyers’ Agency Bill of Rights, available at no charge by request. Please contact the company at 866-696-2266, or via email at www.OwnACondo.com, to obtain a copy or request other information.