With the government, third-parties, consumer groups and the financial press conspiring together to push real estate commission fees downward, there's an unintended consequence that these groups hadn't counted on. With many areas declaring a buyer's market, homes are harder to sell, and when that happens, sellers are willing to pay more in commission incentives.

However, the financial press is wasting no time in making higher incentives to buyer's agents look disreputable.

A new anti-Realtor article in Money Magazine by senior writer Stephen Gandel titled, "How to make your realtor work for you," suggests that most agents work for sellers, that sellers pay both the seller's and buyer's agent, and that buyer's agents incentified by higher commissions may show homes to buyers in their own interest, not in the buyer's interest, and that the buyer's agent does not have to disclose the extra incentive.

As usual, the financial press gets just enough right and wrong to be dangerous.

Like any other market, real estate rises and falls on demand. When demand falls, sellers get nervous and one of the actions they take to bring attention to their homes for sale is up the incentive to the buyer's agent. Except for one little detail. They aren't paying the incentive -- the seller's agent is.

In nearly all real estate markets, brokers have a way to cooperate to get homes sold. That method is typically the multiple listing service, which has rules for the sharing of commissions and the input of sales content to the MLS's online repository of information.

What typically happens is that the listing broker agrees to a commission to be paid by the seller. The seller is actually paying the listing agent to get the home sold. That amount is private, but when the listing broker puts the seller's listing into the MLS, the listing broker makes an offer to cooperate with competing brokers to invite their participation with the goal of getting the home sold.

While it's true that buyer's agents don't have to disclose incentives any more than they have to disclose their normal fees, buyer's agents under contract as fiduciaries to buyers are obligated to work in the buyer's best interest, which includes disclosing extra renumeration for showing a particular home. Many buyer's agents, in fact, choose to rebate the extra fee or part of their usual fee, to the buyer.

In Gandel's story, it's suggested that buyer's agents be forced by the buyer to put into writing what they'll be paid at closing, but the reality is that the buyer's agent has no reason to do this if the buyer isn't paying the commission.

Buyers can offer a commission to the buyer's agent and ask that the buyer's agent decline the commission offered by the listing agent, but they can't control the compensation of the buyer's agent when they aren't under contract or are offering no compensation.

Sorry, Gandel, but that's the way it is.

Another slur that should not go unanswered is the suggestion that a buyer's agent is incentified to show buyers overpriced homes. A buyer's agent is under the same obligation to work in his/her client's best interest as a listing agent, and has the same materials at hand to help the buyer construct an offer including the use of comparable market analysis, years of experience, broker price opinions, and appraisals to name a few.

In this age of transparency, buyers do have the option of contacting listing agents directly to buy a home and they can certainly ask that the buyer's agent commission be rebated to them since they aren't using a buyer's agent.

But the flip side of that is that the buyer is then unrepresented, which means that the agent, who may owe fiduciary duty to the seller, has no obligation to try to help the buyer buy the home for less money.

Which brings us to the question -- why would Gandel recommend that buyers go directly to the listing agent to negotiate on a home when he started his piece by warning readers that most agents work for the seller and that with a slowing market, incentives mean that agents are more likely to work for the seller?

If what Gandel says is true, wouldn't the listing agent save a bundle by working directly with the buyer, by not having to pay a buyer's agent? That savings may or may not be passed along to the consumer, because all listing agents negotiate the commission from the seller, and if the listing broker sells the home themselves, they keep the full amount. They have already been guaranteed that fee set by the seller to get the house sold whether a buyer's broker is involved or not.

Cooperation for commissions is simply designed to bring a broader market (more buyers) to the seller so that the seller can get a better price for their home. In worrying about the effect on the buyer only, Gandel ignores one of the most time-tested rules of real estate economics.

You can't deliberately limit the market for the seller without hurting the buyer, too.