Do I need a real estate agent to close a deal?

[Jon Kelly]

Hello BP, first blog post! I've purchased one rental property so far, and I used the traditional approach of hiring an agent. In a sense I felt cheated because my agent had to do minimal work, yet still collected the roughly 3% commission. My question is, do I need a real estate agent in order to close a deal? I know my agent had numerous legal documents for me to sign, but I'm wondering if there is a way I could complete the documents by myself or work with the seller's agent. Typically, the seller would pay my agent's commission, but it could still be a way to lower the purchase price if they didn't have to pay the commission. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Jon