Real Estate people: I want to buy a house, advice?

[Python49]

Just looking for some knowledgable from the people of 2p2 to help point me in the right direction for what i'm trying to do. I do plan to take a good month off from poker/everything just to study this alot before making my decision of what to do, but also just wanted to get some ideas to think about before then as well.

Basically i'm looking to buy a house and maybe a 2nd one just for investment purposes.

My question is... is it better to buy a house just 100% with cash or just put some cash down for a loan? The part that makes me unsure is that I don't have good credit... not because i've ever been delinquent in paying bills but just because I don't use credit cards and never built up good credit... so this would result in a higher interest rate on my loan.

I'm looking to buy a house in a housing market i'm told is low right now but expected to go back up within the next 1-2 years so was considering buying 1 house that i'll be living in and a second one for investment purposes. I've read some books and talked to other people who have experience in real estate but haven't actually ever done anything myself.

I was told that it's better to get a loan because then you can deduct property tax, school tax, county tax, and stuff like that... but that if you just buy the house cash you don't get those same benefits. My concern with getting the loan though is that i'd be paying alot in interest and that if I over extend myself and end up not being able to sell the house after 2 years and am stuck the mortgage payments that I could end up paying more interest than I intend to.

So... assuming I can afford to buy two houses at $120k each or so in cash is it better to do that or to just get the loan and end up getting 30k (just a random guess) tacked onto each? If theres any other information needed from me to get better responses let me know.