I also had a less-than-stellar experience dealing with a realtor on my first purchase a few years ago. The guy barely did anything useful except provide his cr

I also had a less-than-stellar experience dealing with a realtor on my first purchase a few years ago. The guy barely did anything useful except provide his credentials for access to tools. He didn't do much to find properties for me. I had better luck searching open databases of listings that didn't seem any quicker to show properties than the janky search used by the "pros". Basically the realtor set up a search for me on his tool and it sent me new listings that met the criteria. But I couldn't edit this search or browse anything so it was mostly useless. So I ended up just emailing him lists of properties I found on my own so he could set up times to check them out. And as I was looking for places that were decent but in need of some updates/minor work, practically every single place was sold to developers/flippers for cash before my realtor could get an offer in. After a year or so looking, I ended up lowering my standards quite a bit because I was getting sick of renting a temporary spot. And of course you sign a contract with a realtor so you can't just shop around for a better one. I was basically stuck because the guy seemed decent in the beginning. But like a car salesman, he lost most of his interest once I was locked in and he realized I wasn't gonna be making him any massive commissions.