Owning a house has become more important than simply having a place to live, or making a sound real estate investment in our society. Buying a house is the sign of entering to adulthood. It shows responsibility and commitment of settling down. It explains to your family and friends that you have left your "live anywhere I please and don't worry about the taxes" attitude behind. It is a sign of growing up.
             You wake up one day and find yourself thinking that you want to paint your room blue or have a garage where you can work on your motorcycle. Maybe you have a spouse who wants more than anything to buy a house. You realize it is time buy a house. The only problem is, you don't know how one goes about buying a house.
             That is the exact situation I found myself in. I wanted to buy a house desperately not because it was a good investment but because I wanted to have a garden, closet space and the freedom of painting my walls fuchsia if I pleased. I was tired of sterile white walls and small-boxed rooms of apartment complexes. Once I convinced my husband that buying a house was essential to our future happiness, we were ready to go and look for a house or so I thought.
             I knew enough that we had to have a down payment saved. After cashing in some investments and draining all of our savings we barely came up with a down payment that we thought was enough. We walked into the local real estate office with our naive dreams and announced that we wanted to buy a house. I was ready for questions such as "Where do you want to buy the house?" or "What type of house would you like?" What I wasn't ready for was "Do you have your pre-qualification letter with you?" The real estate agent was kind enough to explain to us that there was a lot of research and learning associated with buying a house, that we needed a lender before we had a real estate agent and that she would be happy to offer some resources for our quest in the pre-qualified mort...