Adventures in House Hunting

So we are officially starting our quest for home ownership. Sunday we went down to go to a few open houses. And here is what I learned: The Realtors price these houses. Price compare with different places!
All of the Century 21 homes we saw were priced between 90-124,000. They were all pieces of crap. I'm talking, a manufactured home out in the country that is literally dilapidated. There were crumbling foundations, huge water leaks, etc. These houses were the biggest junk heaps I've ever seen. THEN we went on a website for another realtor and the houses in the same price range were visibally much nicer and larger. I mean, much much much.
I thought that the housing market was supposed to be awesome right now. Geez.
Tomorrow we have an appointment with a guy from 1st Citizens Bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan. This guy does business with D's dad's business and wants to get more of D's Dad's business. So he'll be working really hard for us which is good.
Right now there's an $8000 tax cut for 1st time home buyers + our county is considered a rural area and we'd qualify for a loan that would cover 100% of costs and we wouldn't have to pay PMI. Our interest rate SHOULD be about 5.1%.
Our only problem is work history. D and I have always worked full-time, but because of school it hasn't been the same job for more than two years in a row. So that could be a factor. However, both of us have a credit score that's well into Excellent.
I'm excited and I'll let you know how it goes!