RocketsRedGlare is a poster here and his wife is a realtor. She's helped me buy/sell multiple houses, and has also helped several other posters here. I very highly recommend her.
If you are buying a used home then I would get a realtor for sure. If you are buying new, you can do without. This is just based on experience. Back in Dec we were selling and buying at the same time. So we had a realtor and brought her along on the purchase but truthfully we mostly dealt directly with the builder and their sales person without the help of a realtor. We currently live in a subdivison with a lot of new construction. A new builder just moved in and have very good affordable options. It's about 10 min away from 288/BW8. Contact me if you want more info so you can look there. I am quite familiar with most of the builders in the area since going through our purchase process.
Our friends were unfortunately stuck with a realtor because they signed a buyer/realtor agreement and got a house through her. They definitely want to make sure her manager hears about how much of a ****ty job she did with us (hopefully up to a point that she gets fired), but how long do you wait to let them know? Maybe a week after signing the paperwork and closing on the house?
fiscally speaking - save up for the 20% downpayment - you'll be better off the long run. Get a 15yr loan, not a 30. Try to keep the monthly payment to 25% or less of your total monthly take-home pay. Personally, I'll never build in a starter-neighborhood again. I'd look for a well-established neighborhood that has been well kept. Someone on this site once said that starter neighborhoods were nothing more than trailer parks without wheels...well its not that bad..but they've still got a lot of issues.
Find a real estate agent and talk to a Mortgage Broker. I bought a house November last year. <a href="http://s1291.photobucket.com/user/Pavlos_Karnezis/media/image003_zps8fd47f26.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/b557/Pavlos_Karnezis/image003_zps8fd47f26.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo image003_zps8fd47f26.jpg"/></a> Kai was a huge help for me last year. Gave me my pre-approval letter and worked with me the whole way. In the end he came second to Citi in terms of loan conditions. I have a good connection at Citi though; Otherwise, I would have gone with Kai. My only other major advice is, don't submit too many applications. Applying for multiple loans, regardless of whether or not you are just trying to compare and contrast, can hurt your credit score. Writing a letter to the federal credit bureau stating that you are 'shopping around' can alleviate this issue though. Each time a loaner asks you if they can access your credit report, make sure that you are seriously considering them. Answering yes results in a 'hard inquiry' on your credit report. A Hard Inquiry' lasts about 2 years. 5 or more Hard Inquiries results in a small decrease in credit score, maybe 10 points. Each time you have ever applied for a credit card or accepted a loan, a hard inquiry was processed onto your credit report. The decrease in credit score is minor though so you may not even care to consider this.
If you need a mortgage broker, let me know and I can get you in touch with somebody very good. I work in Secondary Marketing for a mortgage lender. My advice on a lender is to avoid one of the big box banks (Wells, Citi, Chase, etc.). Their turn-times are horrendous, and their rates aren't always better.
Trying to purchase a home is stupid expensive and like a rat race with all these people flooding Houston this summer. I guess I am still young and haven't realized yet that the world will be easier on me than the average joe because my parents told me so.
