Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Steps to buying a home
At this stage, I would think about education.  You can attend open houses, and often times real estate agents and bankers put on seminars for first time home buyers.  Borrow books from the library and I would watch some HGTV.  Many of the shows are entertaining and quite educational.   Secondly you may want to get your finances in order.  Make and stick to a budget.  Start building a down payment and emergency fund.  Pay down consumer debt/student loans.  Picking up side work or overtime will help.   You will look far more attractive to a lender if you go in with a large down payment and an emergency fund then someone with better credit scores and 100% financing.  That is if the lender does manual underwriting.  If not, then use a different lender. Once you get a budget figured out, how much of a down payment and emergency fund you need, and how much consumer debt to pay off, you can then predict when you will hit your goals.  Then you will know when you are ready to buy.  If it seems too far off, cut spending and work more if it is that important to you! You can make a prioritized list about what is most important features to you and your wife. I would wait on doing this until after you view some homes.  Open houses are a great way to do this, but be careful not to get "house fever" and rush into a decision.  You will get some encouragement to do so by the selling agents.   After viewing some homes, and developing your list you can get an idea as of what the home will cost.  This will further refine your budget, goals, and timeline.    I think that is a lot of work to start.