Home Hunting

I've been interested in personal finance for several years now, since I graduated from college. I read all sorts of books, magazines, blogs and articles to educate myself. And yet I move in only fits and starts. I generate and formulate ideas, and then I don't act on them. I procrastinate.

This has to end.

I am about to launch into a house search and I'll try to chronicle that here. We bought our current house about two and a half years ago, when it was just for two. Now that it's three--wife, baby and me--it's getting a bit cramped and time to find a new house.

Here's what we've done so far:
- Staked out some open houses to get a feel for the market and prices.
- Read local home-sale guides to get a feel for the market.
- Determined what it is we want and where.
- Roughly sketched out what we want to pay.

Now it's time to get preapproved on a mortgage and start searching. My goal right now is to get the process in motion before the beginning of November and search a bit then before really ramping up the search after the first of the year. This is how we approached the process last time and it mostly worked.

But several big questions remain:
- Where to go to get preapproved?
- Who to list with?
- Which real-estate agency to work with?
- Should we combine listing and buying agents?

First things first. I'm going to set about getting preapproved over the course of the next few weeks. I plan to check my local brick-and-mortar bank first, and then perhaps a local real-estate company. It may end up that we work with niether, but hopefully they'll be able to get us started.

I also hope to call a local agent who has advertised that she sells a lot of homes in our neighborhood, of which she also happens to be a resident. Perhaps I should call her first.