Did you know that the real estate agent who advertises a property, shows it to you, answers your questions, and prepares the paperwork may have no duty to look after your interests at all? I first asked that question on this website in December 2006. The helpful agent at the open house could be the exclusive agent of the seller, working to get the best possible terms for the seller. Almost twenty years later, that is still the first thing I explain to a new buyer. The welcome difference is that Ontario law now requires someone to explain it to you.
But there is a bigger question hiding behind that one. The expensive mistake in real estate is rarely paying a little too much. More often it is buying the wrong home: a building, a street, or a monthly cost that does not fit the life you are about to live. The buyers I work with today have one thing 2021 never gave them: time. This article is about how to use it.
Who is actually working for you?
On December 1, 2023, the second phase of Ontario’s Trust in Real Estate Services Act, 2002 (TRESA) came into force, updating the framework previously known as REBBA. For buyers, three changes matter most, and all three are about the question I asked in 2006.
First, the RECO Information Guide. Before a real estate agent provides you with services or assistance, they must give you the Real Estate Council of Ontario’s guide and walk you through it. It explains, in plain language, who works for whom. If an agent is eager to show you homes and the guide has not come up, that is your cue to slow down and ask why.
Second, you are now either a client or a self-represented party. The old in-between category is gone. If you have not signed a representation agreement with a brokerage, you are representing yourself, and the guide itself is blunt about what that means: an agent who works for the seller cannot give you services, opinions, or advice, and they are obligated to share what you tell them with their seller client. Your motivation, the most you would pay, the conditions you are considering: all of it can flow to the other side of the table. That agent is not being unkind. They are doing their job for their client, which is exactly what your own representative would do for you.
Third, designated representation. Since December 1, 2023, your agreement can name a specific agent as your designated representative, the person whose loyalty belongs to you personally, while the brokerage and its other agents are required to treat you impartially. And if a multiple representation situation arises, where the same brokerage or the same agent would represent both sides of one transaction, or two competing buyers for the same property, it cannot proceed unless every client agrees in writing. You can simply say no.
As a buyer, you can protect yourself by having a buyer’s agent where your interests, not the seller’s interests, are of paramount importance. I wrote that sentence in 2006. TRESA has finally built the paperwork around it.
What does your own agent cost?
In 2006 I answered this question with a sentence I would not write today. I told buyers the service cost them nothing at all. That was the standard industry answer of the time, and it was too simple even then. Here is the honest 2026 version.
Buyer representation is typically paid out of the transaction itself, and the structures vary. RECO is clear that the amount is not fixed or approved by RECO itself, any government authority, or any real estate association or board: you and the brokerage decide it together, as a percentage of the price, a flat amount, or a combination. Your buyer representation agreement must state what you agree to pay and how that amount changes if the seller agrees to cover some or all of your brokerage’s fee. RECO also cautions that a seller might not offer anything toward that fee, so read the payment section carefully and ask your questions before you sign, not after.
The heart of my 2006 answer still stands: you can have an experienced professional whose loyalty belongs to you, and the structure of the transaction usually carries that cost. But “free” was never the right word, and you deserve the real numbers.
What does the wrong home look like?
In my experience, the wrong home causes far more grief than the wrong price, and it usually fails in one of four ways. Walk through this list calmly, before you write anything.
The wrong building. With a condo, everything rests on the corporation’s finances: the reserve fund, the status certificate, the board minutes. I wrote a separate checklist in Anatomy of a Safe Condo, and I would rather you read it before you fall in love with a kitchen. For freehold homes, the same discipline points at the roof, the furnace, the wiring, and the drainage, which is what a good home inspection is for; I set out the older-home red flags and how to choose an inspector in my guide to home inspections in Ontario.
The wrong street. The house can be right and the location still wrong. Visit on a weekday morning and again late on a weekend evening, and listen. Walk the route your child would take to school. Check the municipality’s published development applications for what may be built nearby. My Richmond Hill clients are often surprised by how different a quiet Sunday street sounds at Tuesday rush hour.
The wrong financial fit. The mortgage payment is the visible number. Property taxes, condo fees, utilities, insurance, parking, and maintenance are the quieter ones, and they arrive every month whether or not you budgeted for them. A home that fits on offer night but crowds out the rest of your life a year later is the wrong home, even if you bought it below asking.
The wrong life-stage fit. Ask the five-year question. Is there room for a second child, a home office, a parent who may move in? Does the location still work if your job changes? The home has to fit the life you will be living in five years, not only the one you live now.
Why are conditions protection, not weakness?
None of the checks above are complicated. What they need is time, and conditions in your offer are how you buy that time. A financing condition protects you if your lender or the appraisal disagrees with your price; I explained why waiving financing is the wrong move in a 2026 buyer’s market. An inspection condition pays for itself the first time it finds something real. A status certificate condition gives your lawyer the window to read a condo corporation’s finances properly. And the closing work your lawyer does, including the title search and title insurance, guards against problems most buyers never see; I covered those in my guide to real estate fraud in the GTA.
Most of the offers I help buyers write today face little or no competition, so conditions cost you little in negotiating strength and buy you the time every check on this list needs. We would rather slow down, investigate, and walk away than let you buy a home that does not protect your future.
If you had to live with your next purchase for ten years, what would you wish you had investigated this week? If you would like a second opinion before you write an offer, ask me, with no cost and no obligation.