I have an interesting perspective.
I just sold my house myself, interviewed a lot of realtors who wanted to help me. Then went on the hunt for a home and went through a lot of realtors who told me “I had to buy now”.

We are currently in escrow, in the neighborhood I have been stalking for years! I watched the house go to foreclosure then stalked it until the realtor was attached, then went after him. In this case we went round and round and eventually went to a “highest and best”. Due to my realtor also being the listing agent he had the inside scoop on what I needed to offer. We won. I was told after all this that the house needed termite work to the tune of $4500 and the bank would not pay. The realtor went back to the bank and was able to get them to offset the purchase price that amount. Also no home warrenty from bank owned. I kinda hinted to realtor that he was making both sides of the deal and he should kick in for the waranty (less than $400) he didn’t seem to want to. So we want the house and are proceeding, but don’t think I would ever recommend this realtor to anyone else.

Me being me yesterday saw a house I had chased and lost as a shortsale (same neighborhood as i am in escrow) it came back on market yesterday as a flip and I wanted to see what they had done. I called listing agent. He was AWESOME! Fairly young guy, super knowledgeable about all the repairs and upgrades to the house. When we talked price we told him the house was fantastic, but probably a little out of our comfort zone. he was emphatic he would do whatever he needed to make it happen if we decided to move forward. We were his clients now and he was going to look out for us, even if it meant giving up a few thousand of his commission. I actually left him and felt guilty for not buying from him, I really wanted to!

I believe we would not be in escrow on a house we are super excited about if I had not used the listing agent….but wow, the guy yesterday willing to go the extra mile was impressive!