[ergothus]

> Why would a real estate agent dissuade someone from buying something?

Story time!

When I was looking at buying my (now current) house, I had a realtor on my side, and my wife actually found the listing (no knock on the realtor there - my wife was just that on top of things) and the house was actually for sale from a realtor at the same company as my realtor.

As we were doing the inspection, I had questions about the pipes (lots of trees, and I knew of some horror stories). I was told the required inspection only covered the house itself, and the pipes would be someone else. My realtor was careful (IMHO) to not dissuade me in any way, but neither did she encourage me. I could tell she wasn't excited about me getting the pipes inspected - in part, I would later find out, because anything bad I discovered would then legally have to be disclosed to future prospects, whereas ignorance was a shield. So she was not a very useful source of guidance for getting this thing done.

But I did get it done, and when the result was a clean bill of health (the inspector showed me the video and was remarking that the pipes were basically pristine, which was amazing for 30+ year old concrete pipes) she was suddenly much more enthusiastic about the inspection. All smiles and congrats and saying what a good decision it had been.

It was a revelation into the incentives involved. To think what might happen to someone else with an agent who would cross the ethical line instead of just being unenthused.

[MertsA]

More than just not wanting to know about problems agents want to avoid any liability for when the home inspector misses something and it comes back to cost the buyer after the sale. Agents nowadays, at least at the franchise that I am familiar with don't want to recommend a particular inspector, they'll list a few decent ones and leave all of those decisions up to the buyer. They also try to avoid being present while the home inspector is there. There's just no reason to take on any added liability when there's no reward for it.

That's also not just hypothetical either, we've been sued a couple times as a brokerage because one of our agents recommended a particular inspector who missed major termite damage.