COMPUTERS ARE YOUR FRIEND So after searching for a place and not really finding what I wanted I was becoming a little discouraged. I thought I was really going to have to compromise, I started looking at house I really wouldn't have been happy in. But I was losing the fight against the long haul...endurance was becoming an issue. I started feeling like "Just choose something, get it over with, you're not going to find what you want so just get it done." Looking for a house can take up a lot of your time, if you are like me, you obsess over something...I must have viewed thousands of houses online. The internet is a great thing for searching, there are plenty of great sites...find one that works for you, but here are some I liked: 1. EveryHome: http://www.everyhomerealty.com/pa/ph/a/home.htm My favorite site by far. The Username is "Special" the password is "client". Lots of ways to sort your searches, easy to read and view pictures. They list houses in Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties (Philly is new, they didn't have it when I was looking). The best feature about this site is that every single day you can see the new listings...so if you're a little obsessive like me, it's great to feel like you are seeing everything that's on the market every single day. 2. Prudential: http://www.prufoxroach.com/index.cfm A pretty good site that has a lot of ways to delimit your searches. They also have a search feature that lists only new listings but it's not done everyday, it's all listings within about a week of being listed. Slightly annoying is that you have to click on an extra button to get the description of the property (if they have written one). 3. PhillyLiving: http://www.phillyliving.com/ A pretty good site for looking specifically in Philadelphia, it lets you search by specific neighborhoods. 4. Mortgage Calculator: Not a search site but since I have previously said money is the absolute first thing you should figure out a good mortgage calculator can be helpful. You will still need a little help from your realtor or mortgage guy to figure out insurance exactly especially if you're doing FHA financing, there is an additional insurance called PMI...but this gets you pretty close and lets you play around with numbers (you need JAVA): http://www.drcalculator.com/mortgage/ 5. Zillow: http://www.zillow.com/ This is another site I used a lot. One of the great features is that you can type in an address and not only see the house you want to look at but also you can see the surrounding houses and their estimates (take the estimates with a grain of salt but they are sometimes worthwhile). One of the other cool features is the birds eye view, you can view the house from different angles and get a sense of other nearby things like other houses or how far away the railroad tracks are. The site also has a wealth of topics you can search and plenty of experts in the filed who, in my experience, were pretty glad to help with questions. I was able to talk to an FHA expert who was really helpful. I'll say this about FHA financing also; if you are interested in FHA 203K or 203b financing drop me a line I'll be glad to tell you all I know...but it's not exactly scintillating reading if you know what I mean...but go here first: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/203k/203kabou.cfm