Real Answers

I’ve become close to my real estate agent and I want to ask him out on a date. Would this be unethical or should I wait until after he’s found me a house?

According to Michael Thiel, an attorney with the National Assn. of Realtors in Washington, D.C.: “(The dating situation) is not touched upon in our code of ethics at all. That situation would not raise questions with our Board of Realtors. For it to be unethical, it (the code) would have to say it’s unethical.”

The primary consideration is whom the agent is representing.

“Dating a buyer’s broker hired to represent only the interests of the buyer would not pose a problem,” said Walter Molony, a spokesperson for the NAR. “But most agents are paid by the seller and therefore have a fiduciary duty to obtain the highest selling price.”

“We don’t have any official position. . . . Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he added.

And that’s probably true for the buyer as well.