I would like to start the process of buying my first home...

[al_g]

First off, a pre-approval is pretty much worthless, you need to get pre-qualified for a loan. My fiancée and I close on our new house next week so this is all fresh in my mind, though it isn't the first house for either of us.

Couple things on your credit score, first if you don't know there are three consumer reporting agencies and for a mortgage the middle score of the three will be used. So make sure to check all three. Next, you mention saving up for a wedding, if you plan to use your fiancée’s income when buying the house her credit scores also matter. In this case, the loan company uses the lower of the two middle scores. If you posted your middle score, you are already in good shape and another 20-30 points may not even get you a lower interest rate. You really need to talk to a loan officer, we are working with Mitch Friedman at Citywide, and he has been great.

I didn't see any mention of a down payment and those are a huge deal these days. I bought my first house in 2005 before the crash and as a new build only put down 1k plus about another 5k in various first time buyer credits. If you don't put down at least 20% you will have to pay PMI, which is insurance to the lender. That can add anywhere from $100 to $200 and maybe more depending on all the factors to your monthly payment. Bigger down payment also means easier approval.

The last big issue that lenders look at is your debt to income ratio. Our loan had an absolute max of 45% debt to income including the new mortage payment. In our case we have turned the house I bought into a rental and are selling her house that we live at now. With the two mortgages we had to go through some hoops in order to have the rental income counted, didn't even take 1/3 of it to drop us below the 45%. If you have car payments, this can be a big hit.

In addition, when looking for a house don't forget to find out if there is a HOA and if so how much they charge a month.

Feel free to PM me or post questions here and I can answer from my recent personal experience.