Showing a property...??? Please Help!

Hello all,

I am slightly lost and would greatly appreciated some guidance. Here is the scenario:

I am working with a motivated buyer, who is speaking w/ my mortgage broker. They cannot qualify to hold a mortgage yet, due to lack of credit. They are discussing HML's and cash line's of credit and are also working w/ a credit service to establish their credit.

I have been focusing on establishing a buyers list and consequently do not have any properties locked up, meeting their criteria. They also do not have an exact criteria yet, as they are still discussing financing options. They do however, have a DESIRED criteria and target market.

I have not yet begun speaking w/ sellers as terms of financing are not yet established. But, the buyers have a few properties in mind already. A few are listed properties which have been on the market 90+days, another is an REO. They would like to go look at the properties and would like me to go w/ them.

Now, as I said, I do NOT have these properties under contract. I have not even spoken w/ the home owner or seen the properties yet myself. I do trust the buyer and I am not worried about them trying to "steal" a property from underneath me. But I am wondering how to work thru this..

I would really like to make sure that I am working to contract the property which my buyers desire. I don't want to have to try and lock up each of the properties, knowing that I will only be able to close on 1 of them.

Due to buyers financial status, they are not interested in "hard balling" on the price when they find the property they desire. They simply want to own their own home. I will do some "hard balling" on my own behalf, so that I may build as much instant equity as possible. But, I can easily make these buyers happy, I just need to make sure there is room for me to negotiate a profit.

Here is where my questions start:

- Is it legal for me to show the properties, which I do NOT have under contract, or does this need to be done by the listing agent(or another agent)?

- Can I have the buyer go look at the property without me? (As I said, I am not worried about them stealing the property from me. As far as they are concerned, they cannot do this without me.)

- Do I need to speak w/ the seller and attempt to lock up these properties before I even try to move forward?

- Can I simply have the buyer look at desired properties then send me a list of which properties they STILL desire after viewing? (IE: Have them send me their top 5 choices, in order, and with how much they are willing to pay??)

I hope I made this understandable. I would REALLY appreciate some advice. PLEASE, ANY expertise would be extremely helpful!

Thanks for your time and good luck!
-Mike