My wife and I have been looking at homes for a month or two by
internet searching and neighborhood drives. We knew it would be easier
to take on a specific agent on our behalf, but we were interested in
finding FSBOs which are easier found without an agent. We were
basically calling the listing agent of each property. Finally, we
found a house we might be interested in and met with the listing
agent. After we got an idea of his personality and ethic, we decided
that even if we don't like his listing, we'd let him find us
something. No agreements were signed, he simply asked that if he puts
some time into finding a property, that we let him take his half
commision (in quite a long drawn out speech about loyalty and good
service etc... Of course, what do we care who actually gets the
commission so we agreed. Well, we actually did consider his listed
property. There was an urgency for the sellers to sell and we told the
agent that we were coming in the following day with an offer. Well,
overnight we decided to pass on this property and called the agent the
following morning. He said, "no problem, we'll continue to look for
new properties and I'll be sending them via email as I find them". We
even armed him with a full sheet of needs, wants, and such. Well, we
never heard from the guy again. I just find this behavior odd..
especially since we were extremely strong buyers (able to put 20%
down, no sale of previous home contingency, etc). His loss. We
eventually found our dream house via another agent who persistantly
emailed listings.

Bob