Valgard:
A great book I can recommend is “Home Buying For Dummies”. Read it through, there’s lots of good advice in there.
Armed with info on costs from that book, fire up your copy of Excel (or go online, you can find real estate calculators) and make yourself a little spreadsheet so that you can figure out what a home selling for $X, with such-and-so mortgage rate, downpayment, etc. will cost on a monthly basis. The numbers are huge and will probably scare the bejeebers out of you. Don’t worry, keep fiddling with the numbers and looking at home prices. You’ll very quickly develop a sense of what you can afford, both in dollars and what that will buy you physically.
And if this is your first home purchase, check with lenders and the local governments to see what first-time buyer programs are available. My condo was only 3% down and later I found out that the county probably would have covered closing costs.
If anyone reading this thread happends to be looking for a house in the Grand Rapids area, make sure you pay a visit to this one.
Full disclosure: I’m related to the owner.