Help me buy a house! (with cliff notes)

[Nomad84]

[ QUOTE ]
find a well respected realtor to use as a buyer's agent. the commission is paid by the sellers. it is no additional cost to you.

if you find a house on your own, the listing realtor will become a dual agent by default and will be representing the sellers at the same time. the listing realtor will get all of the commission and have a conflict of interest in representing your best interests.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard that it's no cost since the seller pays, but I've also heard (and it makes perfect sense) that the seller has it budgeted in already and if you don't use a realtor that it's basically another 3% price reduction that can be negotiated pretty easily. If I were buying an existing home, I'd almost certainly want to use a realtor, but I didn't really think it was necessary for buying a new construction house. I'm also unclear on how the commission issue works with their realtor because he is one of their staff members and not just some random realtor that they found through the yellow pages. Since he works for them on a daily basis (and only for them), is he still working off of commission? I'd guess yes, at least to some extent, but I don't know.

If I decide to use a buyer's agent, can I negotiate a rebate of a portion of that 3% fee since I'd basically just be having them walk me through the paperwork? I realize that represents a significant amount of work, but it's certainly less work than doing the same thing after locating and showing me a large number of available homes and helping me choose the one I want.

What are the downsides of not using a realtor? Obviously I don't know as much as I'd like to about what steps I need to take completing the purchase and related transactions/contracts/etc. Having a realtor would potentially solve this problem, of course. As for having someone involved who has my interests in mine, won't I need to get an attorney involved on my behalf to review the documents and ensure that everything is as it should be?