Buying primary residence from a friend without using agent

[Mike Savage]

A friend is moving out of state after 15 years and we are very interested in buying his house.  he insisted on listing it with one of his agent friends.  they will be shooting photos on Saturday and listing it on Monday. we are willing to pay his asking price and we are thinking about NOT using an agent since this is our 5th property purchase.  Is this just careless or is the agent getting a deal ultimately that we pay for.  Potentially full 6% commission.  I have been telling our friend for years that we are seriously interested and now it's go time.  we like the house and we want to secure the property on Sunday before it gets listed on Monday.  I spoke to our accountant who said this is a layup for the agent and mentioned asking the selling agent to take a 3% commission and then ask our friend to split the difference in the commission savings.  It's a significant amount around $20k since sales prices are high in our market.  what is the smoothest way to handle this??