Zoe,    Personally I would wait for the market to drop a little more before buying again. The housing market is dropping pretty fast, just last December over 100,000 people foreclosed on their homes. From what I have been reading it is only going to get worse. 2 years ago around here you could open the Sunday paper and only find 30 homes for sale because they were selling so fast. Fast forward to today and there are hundreds of homes for sale in the Sunday paper and they are taking months and months to sell. I am going to be upgrading to a bigger home soon but I personally am going to wait at least 6 more months. Keep you eyes open for foreclosures just like the one you found and you will find yourself something for under 300k easily but you have to be patient.    As for PMI.......put 20% down and you won't have to pay that so start saving.    Homeowners insurance.......you can choose whoever you want......I found some very good rated by using one of those online insurance finders.    Title company.........some lenders like to use a certain one but you can request a certain company and they will allow it.    Stick that $30,000 into a CD bond or a good investment for 6 months while your waiting. If you come across something in the meantime you could always pull it out or you can keep it in and reap the interest.    You can find some very good fixers for half their value sometimes. Try finding some properties that need allot of work and contract with some reasonable contractors to fix them up for you. You could save allot of money but it could be allot of work.