It's a long journey to get to eventually buying a home. Some people only become conscious of the journey when they're at the point of shopping for a home and moving towards closing. Probably because that's where all the action begins. However, the journey is so much more than that and actually starts a lot earlier, from the time they start building up a good credit history.

Getting to know a few things about the home search can help you identify the challenges of buying a home better and address them as you go work your way through the system:

1. Home searching - Let's say that you're eyeing Colorado Springs real estate as your dream home. In this day and age, a lot of people begin their home search online. Some purists and staunch supporters of traditional methods may say that this isn't effective, but since a lot of tools and websites are already being improved to give home searchers the information that they want, many different services are actually proving quite useful. These days there are websites that show updated real estate listings, photos of homes for sale, ratings for neighborhoods, and the likes. It doesn't replace actually getting an agent and looking at properties, but it sure gives you a great place to start. If you know how to search for them, you'll know that there are a lot of great home searching tools available online which you can use to your advantage.

2. Determining what you want - Before sitting down with a real estate agent, it's better if you already know what you want. This makes home searching easier for both of you. However, selecting the homes that you want out of the homes that you will look at will be challenging as you look at more properties for sale. It's best of you take pictures as you go and neatly file them so that you know which one is which. Take lots of notes about the properties that you visit. Include information about potential improvements that you see, pros and cons of each property, your overall impression of the place, information you gain about why the seller is selling, observations about the neighborhood and the neighbors, and important things such as those.

3. Sticking to one - When you come to a point when you have already made up your mind about one property, just stick to it unless there's a good reason to turn your attention elsewhere. You'll find that there will always be a better house than what you are looking at. At times it's really best if you focused on a house that you really like which is in a good location and is within your budget. Looking around further, especially while in the closing stage, is very counter productive and will only cause you to feel discouraged about your purchase.

4. List down the things you need to do - Your agent can help you understand the process better by creating a list with you and walking you through it. Learn as much as you can about the process so you can have a feel of whether it's time to anticipate some issues or not. Also, you'll never know when you'll want to buy another house in the future. This would come handy then.