How does First Time Home Buying work.

First you need to learn a lot. Do NOT trust your realtor to give you the complete honest truth. They may not know everything about the market realities we are facing that are forcing prices lower.

Almost 2 years ago I had a realtor tell me that prices in their area had finished falling. I said they had not. I explained some of the things that would bring even lower prices. A year and a half later I again talked to that realtor. They admitted that prices had fallen more since we first talked. This realtor was not being dishonest back then. This realtor was seeing what was happening during the free $8,000 for buying a house days and not seeing the big picture. I would be glad to work that that realtor again. They just made a honest mistake not knowing some things I had found out they had not.

First, determine what you can really afford each month. This shows how.
"How to determine what you can safely afford to pay towards your monthly mortgage payment. Lenders may give a different number. "

Then decide if renting or buying is a better financial decision. This shows that simple way to figure it out yourself.
"Does it make more sense to buy, or to rent? Here is the way to find out for sure."

Be sure that renting is not a better safer choice for you. This gives a very different perspective on the question and is well worth looking at.
"Why rent if you could buy for less money? Valid reasons inside."

FINALLY!!! This show the basic house buying process from step one.
"Its your first home and you are looking for something but are not sure where to start to look or about loans."

If those were helpful look at my zillow profile for more useful blogs about real estate.    

Thanks for your question "NicholeSloan".

The very first thing you should do is contact a local, professional, full time Realtor in your area.  They can guide you through the process pertinent to your local market.  I always recommend searching out one on Zillow and reading past client reviews which is a great feature to help people trying to figure out which Realtor and why.

If this does not work for you, feel free to contact me and I will tap into my referral system for a quality Realtor that best matches up with you.

Hope this helped, good luck!