[onetwo_threefour]

^ That's a good point fotze, and kind of what I'm trying to get at as well. The easy answer is the the Realtor's ethical obligations include a duty of honesty so they can't lie to another industry member or member of the public when asked directly. However, I'm always nervous when a Realtor's ethical obligations seem to conflict with their fiduciary duties to their own client and the client's instructions.

The thing about c/s status is that it never meant that a buyer couldn't come in and view the property and make an offer, it just made it unlikely that a buyer or buyer's realtor would bother given that conditional offers usually firm up. Really the difference now is that you're potentially wasting buyers' and buyers' realtors' time making them chase down information that is likely going to make them refuse to view the property anyway so that a Seller can get some continuing action on the property. It makes me wonder if savvy Sellers will want to start putting in Seller's conditions that run as long as Buyer's conditions so they can pull the plug if a better offer comes in.

Effectively this is just a 'sneaky' way of getting around a buyer's unwillingess to waste time looking at c/s properties if you look at it from a buyer's perspective.