Help purchasing second house

[Marco Garza]

Hi, so im looking into moving out of town an purchasing my second house an putting the one I own to rent.

Big question is my  wife wants to buy a new constructed house.

The preferred lender is giving us 1% towards down payment an builder is putting an extra 1k as incentives if we go through them.

The floor plan that we like is 170k an we are going conventional, since we already used fha. The lender said it will be around 8k in closing cost on top of my 5% down which is another 8k more or less.

I asked if they can through in some free upgrades an they said no to everything.

I also asked if they can put more towards closing cost but didn't give me a straight answer an sounded like a NO as well.

I have everthing in a roll credit score is 760, my dept ratio is low, I have a secure job as well, and have funds for a new house.

Should I hire a realtor to pressure them for upgrades or lower closing cost? Is best to just work with the builder straight to avoid buyer agent fees an maybe they will put more towards closing cost?

Is possible that there's some other lenders that have less charges or everthing is about the same out there right now?

Would it be best to buy used compared to new because we found another house with about the same square footage but its 2004.

Thank you all in advance guys n gals!!