My wife and I just closed on our first home purchase a few weeks ago.

I can't speak to the names, but I'd imagine it'll make things easier.

Ask friends, get recommendations, and vet lenders before diving head first with one. Our lender came recommended from a couple friends, we checked out some others but ended up sticking with the first recommendation. He was great to work with and was on our side, and ultimately saved us a bunch of money--dropped PMI by $80/mo down from $131 to $51 and got us an extra 2.5K in closing credits-- by filing the loan a certain way. Our rate was 2.67%. They will take the worst credit score if filing together for the loan, so keep that in mind. Both our credit is excellent, so it didn't matter in our case.

Definitely get pre approved before even considering homes. Your lender will give you a full breakdown of cash needed to close which can help you budget.

You are going to need to put at least 3% down, recommended by any realtor I talked to is 5% though. The market is hyper competitive and if you can't meet that it's possible a buyer will just not consider your offer because of potential cash flow or lender issues.

You'll need earnest money ready immediately after your offer is expected. It's typically 1-2% of your down payment.

You need more liquid money than you think. We bought a home for 325K. At 5% with closing costs and down payment put us around 22K in cash go close. This includes all the fees and first year of homeowners insurance, taxes, stuff like that. Have a good idea of cash flow and what you can afford, your lender will be helpful here. Don't buy too much house just because you get approved for it. We could've bought a home nearly triple what we bought, its kind of ludicrous what you can get approved for.

You'll want to remember that you need home inspections! Sewer, general home and chimney (if you have one). These should coat under 1K total, area depending (I live in a large city). Our chimney inspection alone let us negotiate around 6K off the closing costs. Home inspectors are not electricians or contractors. They will not find everything wrong with your house. Plan for stuff to go wrong.

We moved in with an extra 30K in savings just for home stuff. Oh shit the furnace or ac breaks has its own slice of savings dedicated to it. And then stuff like furnishings, upgrades, paint, down spout repairs, furnace and hvac cleaning, locks changed, etc... Will all cost money. You dont wanna be house poor.

Look at lots of houses before you even start making offers. You never know what you're going to end up liking. And I'd say on that end, you can always fix your home but you can't fix your neighborhood.

Ultimately, don't rush anything, it's the biggest purchase you're going to make in your life up to this point. And enjoy the ride.

Hope this all helps, feel free to ask follow ups. I had lots of questions as a first time buyer, and while I don't have all the answers I think we made a lot of smart decisions along the way.