Should we pay real estate agent?

[Trentan Moore]

Here is our situation:

We have recently just switched real estate agents and he has spent a little time finding us a rental property to purchase (2-4 units), probably 3 weeks in total. During that time he has gathered information on a few properties as well as showed us 1 property that we were not interested in after walking thru.

Now for the dilemma, we just found out that a friend of ours has recently listed a condo of his and we are interested in buying it. However, he has already signed a contract with his own REI and is stuck with them for 1 year. Should we bring our REI into the deal and pay him even though we found the deal on our own through a mutual friend? We like this agent and we want to stay in good standing with him and continue to work with him in the future.

Any advice on this situation would be appreciated.

Trent