My husband and I are excited about possibly becoming first time home owners.  We recently moved from New York City where the real estate is high to North Carolina where the real estate is average.  It turns out that buying a house isn’t as easy as we thought.  We had to sit down with our budget worksheet to fully figure out what we could afford.  Once we had that number, we had to go to several banks to get a loan.  They were really strict about what they would allow as far as borrowing money goes.  It pays to stick to a budget if you want to buy a house!