Need help purchasing 2nd residence

[Marco Garza]

Hi, so im looking into moving out of town and purchasing my second residence an putting my current residence to rent since I have a small payment on it.

Big question is my wife wants to go for a new construction house.

The preferred lender is giving 1% towards closing cost an builder is giving 1k as incentive if we go there way.

The house we like is 170k an ill be going conventional since I used fha on my first house. The lender said ill give about 8k in closing cost on top of the 5% down (about 8k).

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

I also asked if they can pay more on closing cost they didn't give me a straight answer but it looked like a NO to me.

I got in touch with a realtor an she stated that its a hot market an that most probably why they won't budge.

Also i have all my ducks in line, credit score 760, dept ratio is low an i have fund for a new house an job security as well.

Question is-

Should I contract an agent so she can put pressure in adding upgrades or bringing down closing cost or thats not going to work in today's market?

Would it be best to do buisness without an agent an see if builder adds upgrades for free or pays more on closing cost since they won't have to pay for the buyers agent?

Is it best to buy used right now for example same square footage house for same price just that it was built on 2004?

Also is there some lenders out there that have less closing cost or everything is about the same right now in terms to closing cost?

Sorry for the long post just wanted to put all the info correctly. Thanks in advance to all who come across!