Independence Begins Where External Pressure Ends

An agent who needs the next mandate to pay the office rent will struggle to tell a seller the asking price is too high, and the seller pays for that struggle in months on the market. With a full book, an agent can show the comparable sales on that street, name a realistic figure and accept losing the listing. With an empty book, the seller's hopeful number starts to look defensible, and the house goes up at a price that sits for months and finally sells below what an honest figure would have fetched at the start.

Other kinds of dependence bend advice the same way. An agency that gets most of its stock from one developer will find it awkward to mention that developer's slow handovers. An office that relies on referrals from one bank may hesitate to say another bank's offer is better. Nobody in these cases has to be dishonest. They lean on something, and the thing they lean on gets a vote in what they say.