Now that you know what you want, it's time to see what you can afford. You can start by crunching the numbers yourself using our selection of buying tools.

When you're ready to move to the next step, you should get pre-approved for a mortgage. This process can often be performed in under an hour and it accomplishes two important goals. First, it will tell you how much house you can afford and what your monthly payments would be. Second, it tells the seller that you can afford to buy their home upfront.

By definition, a pre-approved buyer has an approved mortgage subject to an appraisal of the property. Many times a buyer can use this pre-approved status as leverage during the negotiation process.

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