Sarah Landrum

The real estate process begins well before you make your short list of dream homes and start attending open houses—and it can end there, too, if you’re not prepared. Many people worry about saving enough money for the down payment, but there’s more to learn about the process of buying a home, requirements for loan approvals and how to overcome obstacles to home ownership. Weigh your financial history carefully, because with the right knowledge comes home-buying power.

Before the deal is finalized, it’s important to ensure your dream home won’t come with any hidden surprises. When home shopping, things aren’t always what they seem. Some surface issues are more damaging to the value of the home than they seem, while others are easily fixed. Before you are knee deep in paperwork or empty your wallet for rounds of inspections, consider these five clear warning signs screaming at you to walk away.

There’s so much to think about when buying a place of your own. From the house-hunting process itself to the price negotiations to the inspection, it’s almost instinctive to cut corners and take shortcuts wherever you can. But there’s one place where a little extra effort in your house hunt could pay off in major dollars. It’s a fact: 47 percent of homebuyers don’t shop around for mortgage lenders, and it costs Americans a collective 9 billion dollars per year.

An online listing for a house is a lot like an online dating profile. You wouldn’t ever lie — better to set honest expectations — but you sure as hell are going to make your situation look as good as possible. That means flattering angles, ruthless editing and, yep, maybe a little Photoshop. If you’re browsing home listings to find your dream home, here are a few things to be wary of when it comes to real estate photography.

A (sort-of-serious) theory: The ease with which you can get around your city without a car is inversely proportional to how easy it will be to get your hands on real estate. When you live in a massive metropolis with a few million other people, trains can be easy to come by, but affordable starter homes are not. But if you know that homeownership is something you want for yourself—and you’re not willing to move out of the city to do it—all hope isn’t lost.

What item in your monthly budget do you spend the most on? Well, if you’re like most Americans, it’s housing. American families, no matter how big or small they are or where they might fall on the economic ladder, spend most of their money keeping a roof over their heads. But the very richest Americans spend way more money doing it than the rest of us.

The reality of owning a home isn’t as simple as it used to be decades ago. Many first-time home buyers are now waiting longer than they ever have, around six years, before shifting from being a renter to being a home owner. (And rates of homeownership are down further than they have been in nearly fifty years.) For many potential home buyers, unsurprisingly, the down payment is their biggest obstacle. Housing prices have gone up while household income has remained relatively stagnant.

Looking forward to making one of the biggest, most exciting purchases of your life? Of course you are! Stressing about finding the perfect home at the perfect price at the perfect time for the biggest purchase of your life? Of course you are. A life event as monumental as buying a home will always come with a side of stress. Luckily, there are plenty of things you can do to make that stress a lot less.