Hi all, I just found this forum and am hoping that someone may be able to answer a question for me.

I am new to real estate and am thinking about purchasing my first home. I've done quite a bit of home work on my local market and have an extensive finance background (I have found that a lot of finance concepts overlap with real estate concepts) and generally feel comfortable with real estate concepts.

My question is this: If I pass the real estate licensing exam, can I self-represent as a home buyer? In other words, can I spend a few weekends studying and a few hundred bucks and save myself thousands of dollars in agent / broker commissions when I buy a home? Are there laws / restrictions against this? Is there anything that is really difficult to learn? It seems pretty straight forward.