@Cosmic we didn't need to "hire" an agent per se, we just expressed interest on Zillow, he contacted me and while we didn't pull the trigger on that one, he continued working with us at no upfront or ongoing cost for about 6 months til he found us something we liked.
That said, the way commissions work in that biz is weird. we got screwed on one we made an offer on because the seller agent wanted to pull some shady moves to not have to split commission with a buyer agent