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Buying a house requires a lot of time and effort, but these 10 steps can help make the home buying process manageable and help you make the best decisions possible.

Step 1: Start Your Research Early

As soon as you can, start reading Web sites, newspapers, and magazines that have real estate listings. Make a note of particular homes you are interested in and see how long they stay on the market. Also, note any changes in asking prices. This will give you a sense of the housing trends in specific areas.

Step 2: Determine How Much House You Can Afford

Lenders generally recommend that people look for homes that cost no more than three to five times their annual household income if the home buyers plan to make a 20% down payment and have a moderate amount of other debt.

But you should make this determination based on your own financial situation. Use our Affordability Calculator to see how much house you can afford.

To help you save for your down payment, try Discover Bank's AutoSavers Plan, which makes it easy to put aside money each month.

Step 3: Get Prequalified and Preapproved for credit for Your Mortgage

Before you start looking for a home, you will need to know how much you can actually spend. The best way to do that is to get prequalified for a mortgage. To get prequalified, you just need to provide some financial information to your mortgage banker, such as your income and the amount of savings and investments you have. Your lender will review this information and tell you how much we can lend you. This will tell you the price range of the homes you should be looking at. Later, you can get preapproved for credit, which involves providing your financial documents (W-2 statements, paycheck stubs, bank account statements, etc.) so your lender can verify your financial status and credit.

Step 4: Find the Right Real Estate Agent

Real estate agents are important partners when you're buying or selling a home. Real estate agents can provide you with helpful information on homes and neighborhoods that isn't easily accessible to the public. Their knowledge of the home buying process, negotiating skills, and familiarity with the area you want to live in can be extremely valuable. And best of all, it doesn't cost you anything to use an agent - they're compensated from the commission paid by the seller of the house.

Step 5: Shop for Your Home and Make an Offer

Start touring homes in your price range. It might be helpful to take notes (using this helpful checklist) on all the homes you visit. You will see a lot of houses! It can be hard to remember everything about them, so you might want to take pictures or video to help you remember each home.

Make sure to check out the little details of each house. For example:

Test the plumbing by running the shower to see how strong the water pressure is and how long it takes to get hot water

Try the electrical system by turning switches on and off

Open and close the windows and doors to see if they work properly

It's also important to evaluate the neighborhood and make a note of things such as:

Are the other homes on the block well maintained?

How much traffic does the street get?

Is there enough street parking for your family and visitors?

Is it conveniently located near places of interest to you: schools, shopping centers, restaurants, parks, and public transportation?

Take as much time as you need to find the right home. Then work with your real estate agent to negotiate a fair offer based on the value of comparable homes in the same neighborhood. Once you and the seller have reached agreement on a price, the house will go into escrow, which is the period of time it takes to complete all of the remaining steps in the home buying process.

Step 6: Get a Home Inspection

Typically, purchase offers are contingent on a home inspection of the property to check for signs of structural damage or things that may need fixing. Your real estate agent usually will help you arrange to have this inspection conducted within a few days of your offer being accepted by the seller. This contingency protects you by giving you a chance to renegotiate your offer or withdraw it without penalty if the inspection reveals significant material damage.

Both you and the seller will receive a report on the home inspector's findings. You can then decide if you want to ask the seller to fix anything on the property before closing the sale. Before the sale closes, you will have a walk-through of the house, which gives you the chance to confirm that any agreed-upon repairs have been made.

Step 7: Work with a Mortgage Banker to Select Your Loan

Lenders have a wide range of competitively priced loan programs and a reputation for exceptional customer service. You will have many questions when you are purchasing a home, and having one of our experienced, responsive mortgage bankers assist you can make the process much easier.

Every home buyer has their own priorities when choosing a mortgage. Some are interested in keeping their monthly payments as low as possible. Others are interested in making sure that their monthly payments never increase. And still others pick a loan based on the knowledge they will be moving again in just a few years.

Step 8: Have the Home Appraised

Lenders will arrange for an appraiser to provide an independent estimate of the value of the house you are buying. The appraiser is a member of a third party company and is not directly associated with the lender. The appraisal will let all the parties involved know that you are paying a fair price for the home.

Step 9: Coordinate the Paperwork

As you can imagine, there is a lot of paperwork involved in buying a house. Your lender will arrange for a title company to handle all of the paperwork and make sure that the seller is the rightful owner of the house you are buying.

Step 10: Close the Sale

At closing, you will sign all of the paperwork required to complete the purchase, including your loan documents. It typically takes a couple of days for your loan to be funded after the paperwork is returned to the lender. Once the check is delivered to the seller, you are ready to move into your new home!

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10 Steps to Buying a House - Home Buying Process

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Buying a house requires a lot of time and effort, but these 10 steps can help make the home buying process manageable and help you make the best decisions possible. As soon as you can, start reading Web sites, newspapers, and magazines that have real estate listings.

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Piano for Beginners, Lesson 1 || The Piano Keyboard

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"A house by the beach" sounds like one of those painfully unobtainable luxuries, like an Aston Martin or NFL season tickets or a post-12th grade education in America. Big, sexy coastal communities have astronomical housing prices, true -- but that doesn't mean you, the average citizen trying to scratch together $1,000 a month to live with a roommate, can't legitimately afford one. And not on a beach in Barrow, Alaska, either.

In the Southeast -- and in parts of the Pacific Northwest -- a number of cities boast beautiful coastline, white sand, and surprisingly affordable housing. SmartAsset crunched some data, factoring in median home prices, home size, property taxes, and annual housing cost (mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc.) to find which beach towns are the overall cheapest. After a few winters of shoveling snow with your bare hands, these look pretty inviting. Below we count down 17 of the cheapest, culminating with the overall most affordable beach town in America.

Get Paid to Party in Cancun

17. Deerfield Beach, Florida

Median home price: $124,900
The only city on this list to reside in a major metropolitan area, this beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton boasts relatively easy access to almost all of South Florida. And might just be the most underrated city in the region. The beach here is big and wide, where even on weekends the sands never get too crowded. It's home to some of South Florida's best breweries, most notably Holy Mackerel and 26 Degrees, just south in Pompano. But perhaps the greatest thing Deerfield has to offer is its burgers -- some argue Charm City's are the best in Florida, and Tucker Duke's Lunchbox is known for one of the most insane burger eating challenges in America.

16. Lake Worth, Florida

Median home price: $151,100
Once regaled as only a place for your grandparents and University of Miami football recruits, Lake Worth has made some major strides to become a pretty respectable little beach town. Arts and culture dominate the resurgent downtown, with the Cultural Council of Palm Beach's art gallery anchoring countless other galleries. Lake Worth hosts one of the largest street painting festivals in the country, where artists from literally all over the world decorate the streets with incredible chalk murals. You've also got great spots like Mulligan's Beach House, right on the water.

15. Port Angeles, Washington

Median home price: $188,300
Though Washington state beaches skew a little on the gray side, don't let this town's proximity to Twilight-famous Forks deter you from making it your Pacific Northwest beach getaway. The town on the Olympic Peninsula sits just a few miles from spectacular Olympic National Park, and the only temperate rainforest in the contiguous United States. Port Angeles is also a popular jumping-off point for whale watching excursions, and even boasts its own historic underground tour of the original buildings left after the city elevated its streets in 1914. And if you're craving big city life, it's a short and scenic ferry ride across Puget Sound to Seattle.

14. Coos Bay, Oregon

Median home price: $166,200
While nobody's hating on the Haystack Rock and Goonies glory of Cannon Beach and Seaside, some of the most scenic shoreline in Oregon sits in Coos Bay. The scenic highlight is Sunset Bay State Park, surrounded by majestic cliffs where miles of hiking trails take you to breathtaking vistas looking out over this secluded cove and the Pacific beyond. Coos Bay also sits on the southern border of Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area -- not exactly the white sands of your Caribbean fantasies, but still some of the most impressive natural wonders in the west, with many dunes standing over 500 feet tall. As for that other thing Oregon is best known for (beer, we mean beer) hit 7 Devils Brewing in town, best known for its crisp, nutty Lighthouse session pale ale.

12. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Median home price: $173,600
The place once known as the Dirty Myrtle has seriously cleaned up in the past few years. Yeah, you've still got Myrtle Beach Bike Week to contest with, but the newish 1.2-mile beach boardwalk and downtown promenade have given this town a more urbane feel. The quaint minor-league baseball park ranks among the best in the nation. And with the lowest property taxes of any city on the list, you can enjoy the 60 miles of undeveloped beach along the grand strand with a lot of extra money in your pocket.

11. Fort Walton Beach, Florida

Median home price: $159,600
While the Redneck Riviera doesn't get enough credit as a world-class beach destination, Fort Walton Beach gets even less. The beaches here and on nearby Okaloosa Island are every bit as breathtaking as the ones in Destin and Panama City, with a fraction of the people. It's also not nearly as developed, which means you won't spend $160K to sit smack next to 14 vacation rental high-rises. Though it's Florida, so you never know.

2. Pensacola, Florida

Median home price: $145,700
Many people know nothing about Florida's westernmost city other than that it had a regrettable syndicated TV series called Wings of Gold. Which is a shame, because while the Naval Air Station is a big part of Pensacola, so are the turquoise beaches along its Southern shores. The base draws a young, diverse crowd to the city, so if you're on the younger side and still want a place to party, Pensacola is a great choice. Especially since it's half-home to the famous Flora-Bama bar on the Alabama state line, a packed roadhouse of fun every weekend.

Sign up here for our daily Thrillist email and subscribe here for our YouTube channel to get your fix of the best in food/drink/fun.

Matt Meltzer is a contributing writer for Thrillist. Follow him on Instagram @meltrez1.

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17 Amazing American Beach Towns You Can Actually Afford to Live In

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"A house by the beach" sounds like one of those painfully unobtainable luxuries, like an Aston Martin or NFL season tickets or a post-12th grade education in America. Big, sexy coastal communities have astronomical housing prices, true -- but that doesn't mean you, the average citizen trying to scratch together $1,000 a month to live with a roommate, can't legitimately afford one.

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Animal Jobs, Employment in Phoenix, AZ | Indeed.com

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532 Animal jobs available in Phoenix, AZ on Indeed.com. Customer Service Representative, Front Desk Agent, Assistant and more!

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The benefits of having a college education are manifold and range from financial to cultural. From common benefits to some unexpected surprises, below you will find a number of reasons which will help to serve as justification for a higher education.
A Few Unexpected Benefits of a College Education
For many high school students, it is hard to imagine what the long term benefits of a college education might be. College is intimidating, the work seems daunting, and meeting all new people seems overwhelming.

What if I don't make any new friends? What if I am having trouble adjusting to dorm life. What if the work is too difficult? However, what most young people do not realize is that the majority of freshmen experiences the same fears.

As a high school student, you value your friends, and parting from those friends may be difficult to think about. The good news, though, is that when you arrive at college, there is a high likelihood that you will find others with similar interests, values and even senses of humor. Additionally, you may find yourself developing new interests by becoming acquainted with those who have completely different life experiences than you.

Often when people find themselves realizing the benefits of a college education, they look back to a time when they first met lifelong friends. In college, your most important task is to learn and begin to take charge of your life by making your own choices. In fact, what you are expected to do is more than likely exactly what you would like to do: learn more about intriguing subjects and spend lots of time with your friends. What better justification for a higher education do you need? One of the key benefits of a college education is the bonds which are created and developed during this unique time in a person's life.

An opportunity to get to know your professors can also be counted as one of the benefits of having a college education. These intellectuals can be counted on to welcome questions and discussion from students. Indeed, they would not be there if passing on knowledge wasn't a passion for them.

Many high school students are too young to understand fully that an equally important aspect of the college experience is making connections. Making connections means simply creating relationships with people who are further along in their careers than you. Your professors in college enjoy playing this role and are happy to help you with your journey after college.

When it comes time to search for a job and take advantage of the benefits of a higher education, you can call on those in the network you've built in order to make this process much easier. One of the benefits of having a college education is creating a strong connection with instructors to give yourself an advantage when beginning the job-seeking process.

Another one of the many benefits of a college education is meeting others from distant places with diverse backgrounds. Gaining the awareness that proximity to diversity affords is another justification for a higher education. Making the acquaintance of people with diverse histories gives you a broader world view, cultural understanding, and sophistication. At college, you'll surround yourself with people who can share a multitude of backgrounds, cultures and experiences.
Employment Benefits of a College Education
Before entering the workplace, it is a good idea to take advantage of this opportunity for social growth and learning, along with other young people who are doing the same. The fact that you'll be building a career for the rest of your life is reason enough to make time for a college education, in every sense of the word. Indeed, a clear benefit of a college education is that not only will it give you time to better know your likes and dislikes before entering the labor force, it will also enhance the likelihood of a more lucrative career for you.

When you spend as much time as you're likely going to in building a career, it's important that you choose something you enjoy and can perform well. If you make yourself aware of your choices by learning about each of your many options, you will increase your chances of being more satisfied with your career later in life.

Many young people are uncertain about a career path at the start of college. This is a time of exploration, and taking the time to explore a variety of college majors is time well spent. If you explore a major that appeals to you, the payoff will be much larger than without an education. The more formal education you have, the more confident you'll be. As a new graduate, when you go out into the world to places far and wide, those in hiring positions will base an opinion of you largely on your college education. Even though you're aware of your stellar personality, they're not. If the education on your resumé looks impressive, they are more apt to see you as a hard working, competent young person.

Decreased Debt - Justification for Higher Education

In any event, justification for higher education could be that it's the best way to delay having to get a job! After prolonging your career search while obtaining a valuable college education, you will find that your career choices will likely be much more substantial with your degree. And while a larger salary is not a guarantee, unless you already have a promising career at 18, you drastically increase your earning potential if you attend college.

Thankfully, with the advent of the Internet, it's now easier than ever to find different ways to pay for college. Taking advantage of these scholarship and grant opportunities can decrease the necessity for a loan to finance your education in the first place.

College-Bound Student Information

CollegeView offers an extensive amount of valuable information and resources for the college-bound student. Please follow these links to discover more ways we can help you in your choice for an educational pathway:

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The Benefits of Having a College Education

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The benefits of having a college education are manifold and range from financial to cultural. From common benefits to some unexpected surprises, below you will find a number of reasons which will help to serve as justification for a higher education.

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Hear from staff and students in the Marine Biology Department at the University of Aberdeen Composer: Lee Rosevere Track: Up To No Good http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere

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Moving out of your parents' house just may be the most important step you take toward independence. You can finally live by your own rules, without curfews or restrictions, and take care of responsibilities on your own schedule and in your own way.

However, as appealing as this may sound, the freedom of living on your own comes with great responsibility, financial and otherwise. Before you take this bold step, make sure you're fully prepared for what lies ahead.

How to Prepare to Live on Your Own

1. Educate Yourself on Living Expenses

Living on your own involves more than paying rent or a mortgage each month. Water, electricity, gas, cable, and phone services are just a handful of expenses you may not immediately think of when contemplating the big move.

In addition, you need to consider renters' insurance, security deposits, grocery shopping, and association fees - plus personal expenses, such as student loans, auto loans, and any credit card debt you may have built up in college. If you're not accustomed to paying your own way and don't sufficiently educate yourself on the costs of living alone, you may find yourself biting off more than you can chew.

2. Set Up a Budget

While you're still living at home, make an effort to familiarize yourself with common household expenses. How much do your parents pay for utility services every month? How about groceries, transportation, and cable? Your own expenses may be lower if you move into a smaller home and have only yourself to provide for, but this can still provide a valuable basis for an estimate.

When you have all these numbers in hand, write out a prospective personal budget for yourself to get a better sense of what you can afford on your own. Determine how much income you're going to need for various insurances, gasoline, food, and other personal expenses. Are you going to have to start making additional payments, such as student loan payments, or are you going to need to buy or lease a car? When you answer all these questions and have all the appropriate numbers in hand, you can get a better sense of what you're going to be able to afford.

Next, set out to find an apartment. Compare average rents of different neighborhoods, and view a wide sampling of apartments, considering factors such as square footage, light, views, safety, and convenience. Weigh the cost of rent plus associated fees against your take-home pay. Once you've done this, you're going to know whether you're ready to make the leap.

3. Pay Rent to Your Parents

Adjusting to life on your own is difficult if you've never paid a bill. If your parents are generous and don't ask for rent, consider yourself lucky - but realize that this will not prepare you for the real world. Therefore, offer to contribute. If your parents refuse to accept a rent check, offer to pay your own auto insurance, or give them money toward utilities or cable.

By assuming responsibilities one at a time while still living at home, you can slowly acclimate yourself to financial independence. And if your parents won't take any money from you, put what you would have given them toward your savings. You can eventually use this money for a security deposit and first and last months' rent for your own home.

4. Build an Emergency Cushion

When bearing the burden of all household expenses on your own, disposable income can quickly become a thing of the past, and saving money is nearly impossible - at least in the beginning. While you still have a surplus income, put it toward a high-yield savings account to help your money grow at a quicker rate. If you contribute 10% of your paycheck each month, you can build up a nice cushion to rely on in case you lose a job, incur a medical expense, or encounter some other unexpected financial burden.

Remember, if you want true independence, you can't rely on your parents as a safety net - you have to create one for yourself.

5. Pay Off Debt

If you're not careful, debt can hinder your financial growth for years. Use your time at mom and dad's to pay yours off - paying particular attention to high-interest debt, such as your credit cards - and resolve not to venture out on your own until that weight is cut loose. For lower-interest debts such as student loans, it's okay to pay the minimum for a while as you establish yourself (and pay off higher debt). Chances are your student loan interest rate is just slightly higher than inflation and therefore not costing you much to maintain.

It's a lot easier to eliminate debt when you have only a few monthly expenses, so do as much as you can before you're on your own.

6. Establish a Credit History

Getting an apartment with no credit history can be challenging, and landlords frequently ask that parents cosign a lease for first-time tenants. However, you can avoid this roadblock by establishing a credit history before moving out on your own. Apply for a secured credit card or a retail charge card, which can be easy with no credit history. Make a charge, pay it off immediately, and then pocket the card. Then, unless you've proven to yourself that you're 100% financially responsible, don't touch it - a card in good standing is enough to establish good credit. You can also take out a federal student loan and make timely payments on it to slowly build a good credit score.

Final Word

If you're constantly clashing with your parents over the rules of the house, that may be a signal that it's time to move out. However, don't let emotions guide your decision. Moving out prematurely can be disastrous to your financial health, and if things don't work out, you may find yourself moving back home - or worse, falling into debt. Be patient, prepare your money, and don't take on the responsibility until you're financially and emotionally ready.

How did you prepare for life on your own?

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Moving Out of Your Parents' House - 6 Financial Tips to Live on Your Own

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Moving out of your parents' house just may be the most important step you take toward independence. You can finally live by your own rules, without curfews or restrictions, and take care of responsibilities on your own schedule and in your own way.

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Why is a high school diploma so important - especially in today's economy? Consider the following options: In today's downturned economy with high unemployment rate, prospective employees need all the credentials they can get in a highly competitive job market.