Updated September 28, 2026
A sell-side broker works for you, the owner, and gets paid when your building closes at the best price a real process can produce. A buy-side broker works for whoever is trying to acquire a building — sometimes yours. When one broker tries to do both jobs on the same transaction, that is dual agency, and it is legal in California with disclosure. It is also the single most misunderstood relationship in an LA multifamily sale, because the seller assumes the broker is fighting for their number when the broker may be getting paid regardless of which number wins.
A sell-side broker — also called a listing broker, or a disposition broker when the conversation is specifically about exiting an asset — has one job: get the owner's building sold at the strongest price a genuine marketing process can produce. Their fiduciary duty runs to you. They price the building on what it will actually sell for, prepare the rent roll and diligence package, market it to the buyer pool that actually closes on assets like yours, and negotiate against every offer that comes in — including offers from buyers their own firm represents.
All three phrases — listing broker, sell-side broker, disposition broker — point at the same fiduciary relationship: the broker's incentive is your number, not the deal happening at any number.
A buy-side broker works for the acquiring party. Their job is sourcing deals, underwriting them against the buyer's return targets, and negotiating the price down, not up. A good buy-side broker for an institutional buyer or a 1031 exchanger is doing exactly what your sell-side broker should be doing — advocating hard for their own client's number, which in this case is the opposite of yours.
That is not a criticism of buy-side brokers. It is the entire point of having two sides. Price discovery works because each side has someone pushing in the other direction. The problem starts when the same broker is pushing in both directions on the same transaction.
When the broker who listed your building also represents the buyer who wants to purchase it, that is dual agency. California allows it with written disclosure and consent from both parties. What it does not do is remove the conflict — it discloses it and asks both sides to proceed anyway.
Here is the mechanism worth understanding before you sign anything. In a normal negotiation, your broker's leverage comes from being willing to walk away from a buyer's offer and find a better one. In a dual-agency transaction, the broker earns the commission regardless of which buyer it is or exactly what price it closes at, as long as it closes. The incentive to push your specific buyer's price up another 2% is real, but weaker than when your broker has nothing to do with the buyer. Most sellers never think to ask whether the broker showing their building to a buyer also represents that buyer. It is a reasonable question, and a sell-side broker with nothing to hide answers it without hesitating.
Full-service LA multifamily brokerage runs 3% to 6% either way, so the fee itself does not tell you which structure you are in — ask directly, in writing, whether your broker intends to represent the buyer too, and what happens to their fee if they do. A broker who is vague about this is avoiding an easy question.
Ask directly: are you a sell-side specialist, or do you also represent buyers actively in this market? Neither answer disqualifies a broker by itself — some of the best sell-side brokers occasionally work disclosed dual-agency deals when the fit is right. What disqualifies a broker is evasiveness about which hat they're wearing on your transaction, or a pattern of representing the same buyers repeatedly, which suggests that relationship is the more durable one. The rest of what separates a broker worth hiring from one who isn't is in how to choose a multifamily broker in Los Angeles and how to choose the best multifamily broker in Los Angeles.
If your broker recommends limiting your listing to a single exclusive agent rather than casting a wide net, that is a separate and legitimate strategy question — not the same one as sell-side versus buy-side. See exclusive listing versus multiple brokers for how that decision is made honestly.
You are not required to avoid dual agency. You are required to know when you are in it, because the negotiating dynamics change the moment one broker is collecting from both sides of your closing statement. Hire a sell-side broker whose incentive structure you understand before you sign, not after the first offer arrives with your own broker's name attached to the buyer.
Once you have the right broker on your side, how to sell an apartment building in Los Angeles lays out the whole sale, from pricing to close.
Is dual agency illegal in California?
No. California allows dual agency in commercial real estate with written disclosure and consent from both the buyer and seller. It is legal; it is not automatically in your best interest, and you decide whether to consent.
Does a sell-side broker cost more than a dual-agency deal?
Not inherently. Full-service LA multifamily commission runs 3% to 6% either way. The question is not price, it is whose interest the negotiation actually serves.
Should I ever use a dual-agency broker?
Sometimes it works fine, particularly when the broker discloses it upfront and you understand the tradeoff. What matters is that you know the structure before you're negotiating inside it, not after.
Michael Sterman is Senior Managing Director Investments at Marcus & Millichap.
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