We just bought our first home, and we’re just across the river in Washington from you.
We ended up doing everything ourselves, purchasing a “for sale by owner”. We started out very intimidated by the process and at first wanted to use brokers and agents. We very successfully did it on our own and I would say that, unless you need someone to do scouting and hunting for you, an agent is a waste of a huge chunk of money that can be spent on getting into a nicer home.
There are lots of how-to’s on the web, and books published on how to buy independently, so do your research, but it is not that hard. Also, take the horror story warnings from other posters (“Get a lawyer!”) with a grain of salt. As long as you are following the state processes and using care and common sense, there are plenty of legal consumer protections to shield you if something should go wrong. Just do your research in advance.
The most important protection you can make for your self…get a kick-ass inspector. If after inspecting a house you still want it? Get one more inspection from another inspector just to be sure. Then, call the local utilities and get past staements and readings of electrical for the property (will let you know if the insulation sucks or not).
A good inspector will poke, prod, scratch, and kick every square inch of the house and will give you a complete itemized list of the condition and quality of every system in the house (water, electrical, wiring, heating, insulation). That way, you can go into price negotiations knowing exactly how much extra money you’ll have to put into fixing or improving. Most importantly, the inspection provides you a legal recourse to back out of purchasing once you’ve signed the initial offer.
We moved out of a rental with black mold, and the same bathroom problems you describe. Interestingly enough, our landlord was also willing to sell us the rental at a good deal when he heard we were looking around to buy. Do NOT buy a house with mold!!! Short of gutting it down to the timbers, you will never be rid of it, and your house probably has serious issues with humidity due to poor insulation, or a poor foundation. We went to court and won a judgement against our landlord over the issue, and in the process discovered some very scary things about mold, both healthwise and repair wise. Call your local state dept of health and they can refer you to information on the subject. Be VERY careful.
Don’t worry so much about the forms/terms of the contract or the title. This is highly standardized and there are a lot of state protections in place to guard against illegal terms of sale.
However, running it all by a lawyer is always a smart idea.
A lot of random thoughts here, hope it is informative…