Hello, sounds like you are well on your way to the american dream. Keep your patters the same, dont rack up any more credit, try to reduce all your expenses that would show on your credit report. All those bills count against your income to qualify. Being 6 months out, you should start consulting a RE Agent and find someone you feel comfortable with. Then start looking to see what is available. Once you are about 2 months out, get in contact with a direct lender or your bank and get a lenders approval. Then when you are prepared to make an offer, if accepted, you will have financing in place. You dont want to place an offer, then to realize in the end you did not qualify for a mortgage in that amount. Going for a condo is your call. Depending on the area and the home values, and spread between SFR's and Condos, it may have a same payment of slighly less than buying a SFR. Reason being is the HOA dues and your insurance. Look at the numbers, and make an informed decision. Thanks.

I would add this. Personally, I would approach a loan officer first to make sure you will get an approval. Nowadays, technically you won't get pre-approved - you will get "pre-qualified."Talking to a lender will allow you to know what you can shop for - and to what loan amount.A good Realtor will want to know FIRST if you will likely be approved - and that will narrow your search.You are doing the right things.Good luck.

The first thing you can do is get a copy of your free credit report. Consumers are entitled to a copy of this periodically. Be careful where you get it because someone may wind up billing your card for a service you do not need. Be sure to cancel that service once you get a copy! Next, I recommend getting with a lender. Most likley this person has a Realtor contact. Then, before you "get in the car" you can take care of approval, or take necessary steps to make sure that once you find a house your loan will go through. Loan guidelines change a lot so you want to have someone you can maintain contact and keep up to date. Relationships are often tenuous between lender and Realtor and if you find a "team" that can help you the advice and process with be more consistent. Loan approval is a strong suit as a homebuyer because buyers have lost contracts to people who ultimately could not obtain the proper financing. Finally, if you are looking for a Condo, you need a copy of lenders questionaire for approval because not only do you need to be approved by the lender but the development itself will need to be as well. This sounds easy enough but many condos are not able to obtain financing because they cannot meet guidelines. Again, the Realtor may find you a great property but if it cannot get financing it is no good to you. The lender is better able to guide you on this than is your Realtor.

I would seek out a realtor and start looking at properties now. One of the previous posters makes the statement that you can't get pre approved- that isn't true at all unless you are working with a mortgage broker. Mortgage Bankers a/k/a as Direct Lenders have underwriters on staff that can pre approve you for a too be determined property. I would find a lender that you are comfortable with I have alot of friends in the Philly area that are mortgage lenders. I can send you over a list of 3-5 originators in your area that you can interview and pick out whi you like the best.As my counter part Mr. Glover stated you will want to be careful when buying a condo. With the housing crisis many condo projects have been hit hard by foreclosures, and we as lenders don't want to be lending in condo projects where alot of the owners are behind on association fees or are in foreclosure, reason being is that thier are going to be problems with the association maintaing the quality of the maintennace and up keep of the porperty. Need to be careful. Then if you make an offer on a condo get the questionairre completed from the assocation first so if you have issues with the assocation you don't get stuck wasting money on an appraisal when the loan is going to get denied for too many homeowners being behind on thier assocation fees.I would find and agent and an originator now. Escpecially if you are looking a purchasing a short sale. With a short sale the owner can agree to the purchase price- but you will steal need approval from the lender that holds the present mortgage and in many cases this can take 4 months or long for the lender to accept the short sale offer.If not buying a short sale or an REO/Bank owned property. You can sign a contract with the seller negotiate the price, and then negotiate the closing date 45-60 days out, then you can alsonegiate a possession date, most lenders will let you close and then take possesion of the house up to 60 days later and the seller rents the house back from you for 60 days. This gives the owner time to find a new house after they have received the money from the closing , it also put them in a better position to make an offer on a new house as they will no long have to make an offer on thier new house with a contingency.Hope this information helps. I will be closing a loan this month for a client that I pre approved in December, one of the reason his offer was accepted was that he was pre approved and not pre qualified. Most realtors won't present offers unless the borrower is pre approved and no prequalified. IF you wnat to learn the difference between a pre approval and a pre qualification go to my facebook fan page at Chicago's First Mortgage Dept. I have many good informative tips on thier for home buyers. I can't lend in PA but I have friends that I have know for many years in PA that can assist you if you want a referral.

It sound slike you have a good idea of how to start the process. I have some ideas for you and am not to far from Horsham. We are located in West Chester, PA. Please call me at 610-344-9988 to speak about your search. Thanks!