I would have said something similar not long ago but I have an agent helping me look right now, and I haven't signed anything. My first day starting to look, I went to about 5 open houses on a Sunday afternoon on my own. I chatted very briefly with the realtors at each one, but didn't say very much. They all want you to sign in though, so I put my name and email address.

One emailed me with some similar houses I might be interested in. It was about two weeks later when I responded to see if she would show me some others that I had seen on MLS. We've now gone out about 4 times to look at places, and she never asked me to sign anything. I will be buying in a few weeks, and I will use her to do the deal (I like her and I'd feel guilty otherwise anyway) but I did think it was odd that she never asked me to sign anything before we looked at houses the first time.

Loosely responding to what Kate and Kombat have said...

I'm actually not a big fan of real estate agents. I think the NAR is darned near an illegal cartel! So this is not a strong endorsement of the profession.

But as individuals, when we bought our condo we worked with a great, very professional buyers agent. We did not have to sign an exclusive agreement and I certainly would not have done so right off the bat. But she really was very good in not wasting our time and then negotiating very well on our behalf. Plus we were buying a property that had been operated as a business so she had to go the extra mile to research business-related issues for us. In the end I would say her advice helped us save thousands but negotiating aggressively yet not so aggressively that we were not taken seriously. So, as an individual I would strongly endorse her and I believe she saved us enough to be well worth her fee. I've met a few other agents in the same area and was not nearly as impressed. I think you just have to shop around. I would not sign any kind of exclusive arrangement until I had worked with them a bit even if they insisted.

I have purchased 2 homes starting back in 2009 in 2 different states, and I have never signed an agreement with a buyer's agent.

The last guy even accepted a lower commission to get the deal done.

About 20 years ago I almost bought a property as an investment. One of my partners was a real estate attorney. He did some really insidious things to the seller's real estate agent. We basically made offers to short the agent their fee and a few other things to entice the buyer against the agent'a interest. Under the law at the time the agent was obligated to present the offer to the seller buy not to accept our conditions.

The seller though was desperate to sell. And without any encouragement n our part simply waited another 45 days until the agency agreement expired then contacted us. Unfortunately for him, by that time we were no longer interested.

We were careful to stay on the right side of the law. A misstep could have gotten us in trouble. But basically we played hardball to trap the agent in the middle and it worked even though we did not end up making the deal in the end for unrelated reasons.