Buyer brokerage (or Buyer agency as it is also known)
is the practice of real estate brokers (and their agents)
in the United States and Canada representing a buyer in a
real estate transaction rather than, by default, representing
the seller either directly or as a sub-agent. In the United
Kingdom the most common term to describe agent is Buying agent.
In most US states and Canadian provinces, until the 1990s,
buyers who worked with an agent of a real estate broker in
finding a house were customers of the brokerage, since, by
most common law of most states at the time, the broker represented
only sellers. Only in the last fifteen years or so have states
passed statute law to create buyers' agency.
Today, if the buyer is working with a broker other than the
brokerage which "lists" the property, he may choose
to enter into a buyer-brokerage agreement to be represented.
(In some cases where dual agency is permitted by law, even
the listing broker may represent the buyer). If the buyer
does not enter into this agreement, he/she remains as a customer
of the broker who is then the sub-agent of seller's broker.