You might consider checking into a community college with an aviation program that's in your state. A lot of the senior instructor's at those places have trained dozens of CFI's and know exactly what it'll take to get you through on the first try. My CFI instructor had 11,000 dual given.
Secondly, take the post from Pilotpip, print it, and post it on your wall. Everything he said there is excellent advice and will save you stress from having to cram after start with an instructor. Just to give you an idea, I have a CFI student right now and he should be ready for his checkride with about 15 hours dual in the airplane and about 40 hours of ground.
On the multi, I would definitely say to get your CFI first. I found with the extra flight experience from teaching that it made getting my multi a whole lot easier.