Found a buyer ourselves… Dual Agency? Lawyer instead?

Hi all, it has a been a whirlwind of a few days and I am wanting some unbiased insight. We have been looking for a property for over a year now (sometimes going months between showings because we were very specific in what we wanted to find and not in a rush because we love our current home). The agent we have been using is the same who helped us buy our current home five years ago. She has also become our friend, this is part of where I am feeling tension with the situation.

A few months ago we put an offer in on a property that didn’t pan out. While we were making the offer, our agent said that if we found a buyer ourselves for our current house, she would split the seller’s commission (3 percent) and not charge the buyer’s commission if they chose to use her as well. At the time I didn’t see that happening so just thanked her for the offer and moved on, but if course noted it.

Last week, a home came on the market we wanted to see and messaged her. She was both out of town and not able to represent us on it due to it being across a state line and she’s not licensed there, so she referred us to another agent in the partnership. He has been great to work with as well! We ended up loving this house, made an offer, and are now currently under contract contingent on the sale of our current home.

Here’s where my dilemma is, the same day our offer was accepted I texted our neighbor to let her know we’d be listing soon and would miss her, just giving her a heads up. We got to talking and she has a family member who wanted to live in our neighborhood. That was Monday. Tuesday, we had said family members over to see the house, they love it, hurried up and got pre approved, and offered verbally to us what we were hoping to list it for. We discussed terms already with them that we all feel good with (we provide home warrantee, they’re willing to do a delayed possession by a few days for us to move, etc.) and got it all figured out for the most part. We just need to get documents going to get under contract. We were in touch with our agent updating her but she did not have a hand in this arrangement at all.

I texted her asking if she will still honor her offer to represent both parties for 3 percent of our profit and she didn’t respond, when I followed up she said “we could discuss it.” Which has me thinking she is rethinking it. My dad knows of other options to pay much less than an agents commission fee to do this privately for much less money. We never signed a seller agreement with this agent. Just planned to use her to both buy and sell when we found the right place. And we would have used her to buy if we could, but that’s not an option. I feel like she might be reconsidered since she won’t get the commission from the house we are buying. We do intend to talk to her soon as she comes back today. I just wanted to get some other opinion. Since we completely arranged this ourselves, are we better off going without an agent at all? Even if she will honor the offer? This is a difference of about $20k for if we went without an agent and $11k if we use her but she doesn’t honor her offer. I know we are under no contract obligation to use her, but morally she has been very good to us and I don’t want “stiff” her. At the same time, that is a LOT of money to us as a young family and I don’t know that sparing feelings is worth that amount if it’s not in the best interest of our family.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!