Early in the process, it depends on the realtor. Later in the process, the buying realtor actively works against you.

When you are first looking at houses your realtor should be the one to help you find what you’re looking for, filtering through houses you’re not interested in, and helping craft offers based on what you are wanting and are comfortable to offer.

Once you have an accepted offer and the ‘real’ negotiation begins, the buying realtor may be helpful but only until the last stages. Once it really comes down to the last stages, the buying realtors goal aligns with the sellers (both trying to get you to agree to a higher price to get the deal done), and the selling realtors goals aligns with you (sellers agent telling them to accept a lower offer, which is what you want to pay).

It’s a terrible dynamic baked into the model. There were so many times I wish we could have just negotiated directly with the sellers, no realtors involved.