Realtors have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the interest of their principal, even when it is against the interest of the agent.

"This duty obligates a real estate broker to act at all times solely in the best interests of his principal to the exclusion of all other interests, including the broker’s own self-interest." https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/handouts-and-bro...

Yeah and people are completely honest when they swear to tell the truth in court too...

Good luck proving that the real estate agent just didn’t know about the house they didn’t show you.

Please note: That is for a "real estate broker". Most buyers and sellers are dealing with a "real estate agent". Agent is a lower level license, for which that duty does not apply.

That differences in fiduciary duty does not appear to be the case. For example

"Agents who represent clients under single agency owe a fiduciary responsibility to the client" https://www.thebalance.com/agency-relationships-in-real-esta...

In California, at least, a real estate agent has both common law and statutory fiduciary and fiduciary-like duties.

In practice, no. The broker != agent distinction is key here. And the insulation between actuons of the agent and responsibility of the broker. Additionally the standard paperwork (AFAICT) routinely has the principal waive the brokers duty of representation as well.

At least from the perspective of the legal profession, the scope of "fiduciary duties" of realtors seems relatively constrained. Buyer's and their agent's interests appear to be misaligned. I can't think of other examples of fiduciaries where, the more the principle pays, the more the agent is compensated, like on the buy side of a standard realtor agreement. Fixed fee or hourly comp. would eliminate the misalignment, but my sense is it's disfavored in the industry.

This is so meaningless I don't even know how to respond. Banks have the same responsibility and look how they've treated customers.

In principle.

But do you have an example of that fiduciary responsibility being enforced to any real degree?

You've corrected the buyer vs. seller agent thing, but I still can't make sense of this. The seller was always going to pay the buying agents commission (they hoped to negotiate a lower rate) - so why is that agent hostile to the sale and/or blackballing the listing? The only reason seems to be to protect the system they benefit from, at the expense of the buyers and sellers.

In such a situation the embedded interests (agents) may well be antagonistic to change, but it doesn't mean that change isn't globally a good idea....

There was no sellers agent, why would that commission be paid? They did pay the buyers agent commission (albeit at a lower rate).