The right real estate agent can save you a bundle. We had a great agent that pointed out every flaw that she saw in houses that we looked at. Yes, she was acting as our agent and was going to be paid out of the price of the house. She saved us a lot of inspection fees for inspections of houses that "looked ok" to us but not ok to her. We ended up buying a house of lower price but better suited to us.
She was quite knowledgeable about the heating and electrical systems that we saw in our search for a house. Her estimates for changing furnaces, roofs and electrical upgrades were pretty well on the money for the area that we were looking at. (We made some enquiries ourselves)