Closing Cost Payment

[Nick Noon]

Good morning BP world.

I had a quick question on closing costs.  First off, I am a newbie at real estate, but I have been doing a lot of reading and research and am getting comfortable with the idea of buying real estate.  I recently met with my mortgage lender who pre-approved me, but we ended up talking about closing costs.  She said to me that these are around $5,000 at closing time and they cannot be rolled into the loan.  Here is my question:

How often are people successful in making the seller pay the closing costs? Is this something that is easily accomplished? I am concerned because I want to make sure I have enough cash on hand to be able to make a deal. I can pull $5,000 out of my 401k for a down payment and I also have about $4,000 cash on hand. I filing for a FHA (3.5% down) or a Mass Housing Loan (3% down) and I am looking for property in the neighborhood of $250,000. So if the closing costs are $5,000 you can see that would probably leave me short for a down payment on a property.

Are there any laws that I should be aware of when negotiating closing costs with the seller?  For instance, could we settle on a price and the consequently tell them I'll pay $5,000 more if they cover the closing costs.  

Would it also be dangerous to go into a property with limited bank roll in case something seriously went wrong that I would have to fix.  I have a good paying job and make above 80k a year but with my school loans an such I don't have a great cash flow.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this extremely important for me to understand before I go into buying a property.