To start the process of buying a home

• To start the process of buying a home you should get Pre-qualified by a mortgage company or lender. This way you will have an idea of how much you can afford on a home.
  
  
• The mortgage company will provide you with a Prequalification letter, which you can take to a realtor so they know you have already been pre-qualified for a loan.
  
• The pre-qual letter will show up to the highest loan amount you are pre-qualified for.
  You will have more room to negotiate when you have been pre-qualified
  
• Most of the time there should be no fee to get pre-qualified
  
• In determining how much you can afford they take in to consideration how much debt you currently have.
• They will take the entire monthly revolving debt payments you have (car payment, credit card payment, etc.), the new housing payment, taxes, and insurance and divide it by your total income. This will give them your debt to income ratio (DTI).
• Normally lender likes to see your debt to income ratio be under 37% to 50%. It varies with different lenders.