Buying in a super hot market - use listing agent or get my own?

[Laura C.]

I'm torn between getting my own buyer's agent or going through a listing agent to buy.  Google searches have been primarily saying it's best to get your own agent (to represent your best interests) and my internal network is telling me to forget the buyer's agent and just go directly to the listing agent.  I am in a super competitive market so it's difficult to get a bid accepted on any house.  I can certainly see the pros/cons of going each route, but there seems to be the major pro of using the listing agent as they would be incentivized to help you so they get both commission cuts.  The argument of using a buyer's agent to represent "my best interests" seems flawed as I'm assuming they would also be hoping for a higher bid price aka higher commission.  Curious to know what the BPs community thinks.

Secondly, I'm looking at multiple cities that may not be super close to each other.  If I did end up getting my own agent, would that even work?  They likely won't specialize in all the cities I'm looking at and it would be quite a trek for them to let me into the houses to view.  I'm in Northern CA if it makes any difference.  I'm not sure if in this situation, it makes sense to just use the listing agent each time or perhaps go through the Redfin route.  Haven't explored Redfin, but you can immediately set up appointments through the app to view homes.  I'm guessing an overseeing agent will be behind the scenes once you're ready to make an offer.  

[Russell Brazil]

Get your own agent.