Getting back to the original topic of buying a property, and stretching your margin, always consider contacting the selling realtor directly. If you've been through the property buying game at least once before, and doing all of your own legwork to find properties online yourself, then dropping 3% on a buyer's agent is of questionable sanity.
When shopping for our current property, we just contacted the listing agent directly on each property we wanted to see, and they were thrilled to handle us under dual agency (same realtor for seller and buyer). I think we even threw in an extra 0.5% or 1% for them, which still saved us $20k on properties we were shopping, over having our own useless buyer's agent.
Buyer's agents were very useful, back before you could find your own listings on the internet, but their job is mostly obsolete today. In some cases, one who's very well-connected or working in a large office, can help you find a property before it's been listed, which may only matter in a very hot seller's market. In other cases, they may give first-time buyers some level of comfort that they're being taken care of and not screwed, although the fact that they work on commission doesn't give them much incentive to get you the lowest price. Overall, I think they're somewhere between a parasite and useless.