Did I just commit to a broker?

As a purchaser you have the right to choose the broker you want to represent you and if you don't like the broker who SE pushed you to you are not committed to stick with them even though they showed you the apartment. However you should be prepared for some kicking and screaming from the broker.

Unless you signed some type of agreement with the “buying broker” from Streeteasy, you can easily change before making an offer. Get yourself a broker you like who will give you advice and look out for your interest. Just inform the broker that you were mistaken about who you were contacting and are not interested in working with them.

Assuming you didn't sign anything, you are not cemented with that buyer broker who paid Streeteasy for the lead, you.

Simply tell the buyer broker you didn't know they were not the exclusive listing agent and that you plan to proceed on your own.

For the broker who paid for the lead, this is not an uncommon thing as most leads on this site are confused consumers who thought they were contacting the listing agent directly.

Good luck

Interesting aside here, a longtime client of ours has been looking for a rental property. A broker at a large firm offer them a discount on the rental Commission if they would sign a five-year buyer broker agreement. They declined, but I thought that was interesting, first time I've heard of a contractual buyer agent agreement being offered in NYC.

30yrs_RE_20_in_REO, how does the kicking and screaming work?

wow Keith please say you were joking about the 5 year??

Nope. They actually forwarded me a copy of the email.

Actually Cityhabitats has a language in their rental contract that if the renter ends up buying the property they rented, the owner needs to pay Cityhabitats 6%. I always crossed that out or made it 1% of purchase price. So the concept has generally existed but 5 year for any property is pushing it.