{{{{Hil's Wrist}}}}. In a totally supportive and non-wrenchy way. (wenchy still possible upon request.)

So, umm, how the hell do we go about buying a house? I mean, we know we've got to move, know we'd rather buy than keep renting, know our latest credit news (imperfect, but decent, and much improved over recent years), have a decent sense of what we can afford and what we want and what's out there and the devastatingly small overlap between those things, have some dudes to contact (mortgage dude from an online friend I don't actually know IRL, agent dude who is ex-of-a-dear-friend), but... what do we do? Contact the dudes? Which dude first? And what do I say to them? Hi, dude, I'm looking for a yadda yadda yadda and btw homeboy said I should look you up?

Mortgage dude will get you pre-approved, which is REALLY good so that you know what you're looking at and the seller's like you best. Then agent dude, who will help you find your house, arrange to go see houses on your schedule without hassles and make everything easier.

A nice bit of added stuff: zillow.com is really useful for statistics on homes in the neighborhoods you're looking in.

Deena's done this more recently than I have, but the basic sequence is:

Contact mortgage guy and get pre-approved for loan. Then you'll know exactly how much you can borrow and everyone will be happier to deal with you. You can also go on eloan.com and get a sense of the range of mortgage rates.

Look at real estate sites and classifieds to get a really good idea what you can get for you money and where. Obsessively drive around the neighborhoods where you think you want to live.

Call agent dude and look at some houses. If he doesn't seem to be paying attention to what you want, like the agent who kept telling me I didn't really need three bedrooms, get a new agent.

Find house. Make offer. Get outbid. Make another offer. Sign contract contingent on the results of a home inspection. Go through a closing process that will make your day seem worse than Jack Bauer's. Pack. Move. Discover that the hot water is hooked up to the cold lines and that there's steam coming out of your toilet. Find out that they never actually vented any of the vents out of the house, but only into the attic.

I seem to have wandered off here. Owning a home is grand. Really.

::holds up an indeterminate collection of fingers:: Buffista honor!

That looks remarkably like "The Shocker", AmyLiz.

The mortgage dude will probably want some financial stuff from you, and he'll be able to give you an idea of how much the payments will be all together - also get you a good interest rate and like Deena said, pre-approval is good.

The agent dude will do the leg work plus make sure the yekky paperwork is good - unless you live in a state where attorney's do that sort of stuff, then you'll need a real estate attorney but either the mortgage dude or the agent dude should be able to hook you up with one.

Go through a closing process that will make your day seem worse than Jack Bauer's

Oh yeah and this!

Revelations are a good thing. I can't tell you the number of times that just figuring out why something was bothering me turned it from a Problem to a problem, y'know? Why, just Tuesday I discovered that finding words to describe how upset I was over something - not even why much less what to do about it - made me feel infinitely better,

Possibly cracktastic, but there it is.

wrod.

Closing wasn't too bad for us, but I had panicked over it so much that I had planned and double-planned for everything.

I used realliving.com and realtor.com for listings. Realtor.com is only updated once a week and sometimes has listings that don't exist for a long time after they're gone but they allow you to save your interest rate and down payment information so that you get a good idea (add $200-$300 a month for taxes, PMI and homeowner's insurance) of what your payment will be. Realliving.com is updated whenever the MLS is updated. Together they give you a decent idea of what's out there and whether or not you can afford it.

I went to that zillow one and checked on the price of a house 3 doors down from my mom that's currently for sale. Could somebody loan me $513,000? Ta ever so.