Also known as: real estate agent · real-estate agents · real estate agents · realtor · real estate broker
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A person authorized to represent a principal in negotiating the purchase, sale, or lease of real property.
Ralph Richardson listed his waterfront warehouse with Crown Ocean under an exclusive agreement. Crown Ocean presented River Naval as a buyer that signed a purchase contract at the full listed price with no financing contingency. When National Naval later refused to close and withheld the commission, the court awarded Crown Ocean its fee because the broker had fulfilled its role by securing a qualifying purchaser.
Rhea Reynolds, a real estate agent, listed homes in Willingboro for several owners. When the township banned For Sale signs, Reynolds advised clients that the restriction limited their ability to reach buyers and coordinated alternative marketing. The owners later challenged the ordinance as an unconstitutional limit on commercial speech.
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Roger Ramirez, a real estate agent, listed a single-family house for an owner who intended to sell to Oxford House for use as a group home for recovering addicts. When the city enforced a zoning rule limiting unrelated occupants, Ramirez helped the buyer obtain a variance by showing that the sale itself did not violate the code definition of family.
Rita Russell, a real estate agent, received an offer on a listed home from a qualified Black buyer. After the seller instructed her to reject the offer because of race, Russell declined to participate and referred the matter to counsel, prompting the seller to claim the state constitution protected private racial preferences in real estate transactions.
Ruby Rivera, a real estate agent, was directed by a seller to refuse offers from Black purchasers on a suburban lot. When the buyer sued under federal civil rights law, Rivera testified that the seller's instruction violated the statute prohibiting racial discrimination in property sales.
Rowan Russell listed a house for sale without telling buyers that multiple murders had occurred inside. After the sale closed, the buyers sued the agent for nondisclosure of the property's reputation, claiming the omission affected market value and their decision to purchase.
A real estate agent earns a commission by producing a buyer ready, willing, and able to purchase on the seller's terms or upon execution of a contract of sale, depending on the listing agreement. The seller cannot in bad faith refuse to complete the transaction and then deny the commission.
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Many states require a written memorandum for a real estate broker's commission contract. An oral agreement is unenforceable, and restitution is unavailable when it would frustrate the statute's purpose by awarding the exact amount promised under the unenforceable contract.
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A statement introduced by phrases such as "in my view" and addressing overall soundness or market value is characterized as opinion or puffing rather than a factual assertion. A buyer cannot avoid the contract based solely on such a statement.
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Restitution is denied when the statute expressly bars recovery of a commission without a writing and allowing restitution would award the same amount promised under the contract, thereby frustrating the statute's purpose.
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…that it include at least three architects, one historian qualified in the field, one city planner or landscape architect, one realtor, and at least one resident of each of the city’s five boroughs. N. Y. C. Charter § 534 (1976). In addition to the ordinance’s requirements concerning the composition of the Commission,…