<prompt> Human: Havent even started looking aside from casually online.  <response>: 1. Save up some more money because closing costs are at least a few thousand dollars. 1. Look online much more than casually to get a good feel for your area and what a good deal is. A good house will disappear over the weekend. 2. Find a Realtor. You should probably get a recommendation from a friend, coworker or your local subreddit. 3. Talk to a bunch of mortgage lenders. Theyll all pull your credit, but if its within a 2 week period it it will only count as one pull on your credit as far as scores go. 4. Decide on a lender based on the best rate and whatever bank Chase, Wells Fargo... has the best service. Youll likely be dealing with that bank for years and I personally hate Wells Fargo so Id be hard pressed to choose them to deal with. Find out what their closing costs are also. 5. Find a house. 6. If you arent completely set on the house, especially if it has been on the market a while, make a somewhat low offer. You can also ask them to pay some of your closing costs. 7. After an offer is accepted, your lender will likely get an appraisal going. 8. Youll probably have a week or so to get an inspection done of the house. You may want to suggest that the inspector write down more junk than usual. 9. With that inspection, you get to amend your offer. There will probably at least a few major things to fix, but they get to see the whole list the inspector wrote down. 10. Think a lot about what youll amend the offer with. The more that is on the list, the easier theyll accept what you ask them to fix. If you ask them to paint, they may offer you as a painting credit because they dont want to do it themselves. Money is always nice. 11. After they accept your amendment, you are on the final stretch. 12. Once the loan goes through and whatnot...make a final inspection. The morning before signing paperwork? Make sure they didnt screw anything up and that a pipe didnt bust the night before. Its still their house and their problem until you sign that stuff. 