A good agent is worth the commission, a great agent is worth more. 

You keep part of the commission when buying / selling3.

@Chris Billington the Colorado Real Estate Commission has standard forms for the promissory note and the deed of trust.

However, I found an investor that has offered me $400k with 5k in earnest money and no buyer realtor commissions. 

., cost + % for the GC work, acquisition fee, selling commission fee, etc. 

They can be a horrific nightmare that can sink you all because someone on the commission is drunk with power, inflexible and/or unrealistic with their expectations.

As far as money goes, I feel I have enough to make something happen but when I spoke to my loan officer that I used on the agent side, he made it seem that my work history (sales commission) needed to be two years solid at the same place in order to get approved for a loan. 

They're still wrong for what they did but you need to be honest and accept your own role in this.By the way, if they are licensed then you can report them to the real estate commission or whatever the governing authority is.

I also paid cash so I had no cost to carry.Purchase $235,000Rehab $50,000Closing and Commissions $11,250Credit to Buyer FHA Loan  $5,000Total:  $301,250Selling Price $355,000Profit  $53,750 

I was able to recycle the leases upon renewal and didn't pay any commissions for the rental, which is a savings of over $4,000 if you consider the rental commission to be 1 month rent.