Access to listings stopped being the product a while ago. What you're paying for on a 300k house, roughly 7,200 at 2.4%, is mostly the thirty days after your offer is accepted.
That window has dated deadlines in it. Inspection response, appraisal contingency, financing contingency, title objection, each with a date after which you either lose the right to walk or lose your earnest money. An agent's job is knowing which of those to keep, which to shorten to make your offer competitive, and what to write when the inspection turns up a 9,000 roof. The negotiation people picture (haggling over price) is smaller than the negotiation over repairs, credits, and closing date.
The pricing work is also less visible than Zillow makes it look. Roughly a dozen states don't make sale prices public at all, so in those places the price history on a listing portal is incomplete and the real comparable sales live in the MLS. Even where prices are public, the portal can't tell you the one that closed at 285 came with a finished basement and a new furnace.
Since the settlement rules took effect on August 17, 2024, you sign a representation agreement before touring, and it states the rate. Use that conversation. Ask what the agent will do if the appraisal comes in low, ask how many of their last ten buyers were investors if you're buying a rental, and ask whether they'll take a reduced rate if you find the property yourself. All of that is negotiable now in a way it wasn't, and an agent who can't answer the first question clearly is telling you something.
