For starters, most people simply don't have the time or patience to purchase a home without the assistance of a realtor. Color me one of them. So for most buyers, trying to purchase a home without a realtor representing your best interests is kind of like a defendant trying to defend himself in court without the benefit of a lawyer to represent his best interests. Good luck with that, and don't complain about the outcome. Anybody who acts as their own lawyer has a fool for a client. That would describe most people who buy homes. The number of stories of people who have successfully navigated the process without the representation of a realtor are outnumbered by the number of stories of people who ended up with a financial disaster on their hands after having bought a home without the representation of a realtor. So, if you choose to represent yourself, you do so at your own risk. If you can pull it off, more power to you. But if you are a first time buyer lacking experience or knowledge of the process, you double the risks if you do. Good luck with that.
Second, if you think that buying is a hassle, wait until you try to sell. Commissions are taken out of the seller's pocket, not the buyer's. That just "sweetens" the deal for the seller. Yes, the realtors have to get paid, and yes they earn their money, but when you're the guy paying them, you start wondering why the buyer doesn't have to pay them too.
My first purchase was in Pasadena California, and there are some subtle differences in the process in California.....or at least there were when we bought our homes—the handling of occupancy permits being one of those differences. One of the tricks we did (which is common) so that we could actually afford the mortgage payment is change both of our payroll withholding exemptions to the most allowable to increase our take-home pay. This works because your mortgage payments go mostly toward interest for the first 10 years or so of your mortgage, and so you count on being able to claim that interest deduction (which is considerable for a few years) on your tax returns against the additional taxes you owe for the reduced payroll deductions. You still wind up with an income tax return, but just not as big as you would likely have otherwise.
We paid cash for our second home, here in Grapevine. THAT was a weird experience...... We had netted a huge profit on the sale of our California home (purchased in 1999 for $170K and sold just 7 years later in 2006 for $530K), so we were in a good position when we came here. We are not rich people, truly we aren't. We've just been fortunate, and God has made a way before us, because I've never had that kind of money available to me before, and I likely never will again. At first, there was a temptation to buy an enormous house and take on a small mortgage. But the more we looked, the more comfortable we were with a medium sized home (there was only three of us to live in it), and we bought a nice home in a very nice part of Grapevine for $220K. I went to the bank and had a cashier's check drawn up for $220K and drove it over to the title company and picked up my keys. Being able to pay cash vastly simplified the process, but it sure felt strange, and it still does today. It will be 5 years next month since we bought our house, and I haven't had a mortgage payment since then. God knew was was coming, and he made the way for us; because what followed financially with loss of jobs and trying to start a business would have surely caused the loss of our home to foreclosure if we had a mortgage payment to make.
Anyway, good luck with all of it. My advice is don't let your pride make your decisions for you. Be humble and take the advice of people who get paid to be knowledgeable about the whole thing. You'll likely be better off in the long run.