Is a real estate agent an agent for the purchaser?

In Regier v. Campbell-Stuart, [1939] Ch. 766, [1939] 3 All E.R. 235, Farwell J. held that a real estate agent who had agreed to act for the purchaser in locating a suitable house was an agent for the purchaser. At p. 768 Farwell J. stated: “No doubt the scope of that agency was limited. What the defendant had undertaken to do for the son of the plaintiff, who was acting on her behalf throughout, was to provide particulars of any houses of which he should hear and think suitable for the purpose which the plaintiff had in mind and which she had communicated to him. He was an agent to’ that extent. Of course, he was not an agent for the purpose of signing any contract of the plaintiff’s or doing more than assisting in the way I have mentioned, but that there was the relationship of principal and agent to that limited extent I think is quite plain.”