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Making the decision to buy your own home can be one of the most stressful but rewarding choices of all. If you’re a first time buyer, the entire process can seem very intimidating. A few common sense tips can help you ease your way through it much easier.

First off, go visit your local library and borrow a few books on basic real estate principals. Make a sincere attempt at learning the jargon associated with the real estate process, so once you’re sitting in a meeting with a seller, a real estate agent and a bank officer, you’ll have a better idea of what everyone is talking about.

Second, know what the difference is between “pre-qualified not pre-approved”, “pre-qualified” and “pre-approved”. Sound confusing? It can be. It all relates to how serious of a buyer you are. If you’re “pre-approved not pre-approved” it simply means that you have given a letter to a potential seller that you can afford their property. It’s nice, but it doesn’t mean much. If you’re “pre-qualified” it means that you have a letter from a mortgage broker saying what he thinks you can afford. This is better than not having a letter, but you can do better still. If you’re “pre-approved” it means that you not only have a letter from a broker, but everything in the letter was shown to be true by a lender and most of the work for a loan has already been done. You’ll have a MUCH better chance of getting the house you want if you’re “pre-approved” than if you are only on one of the other stages.

Choose the right lender. One of the phrases you’re bound to get sick of hearing when you’re thinking about buying a home is, “do the research!!” This can’t be emphasized enough since banks offer different rates across the board. The more banks you visit, the better the chances are of you getting a better deal.

Make sure that you plan for possible delays in processing. Any business that deals in red tape is going to have problems getting things done on time. Real estate purchases are no different, so make sure you factor these likely problems into your plans.

While none of these tips are fool proof, they can help you through a very stressful time. No doubt you will still have times where you feel like putting your fist through a wall, but a little common sense goes a long way when dealing with real estate, and the more you know, the better off you’ll be.

While discussion on the state of the current US housing market is pretty much finished, experts have turned their attention from Is the housing market falling to Where is it going to fall first? And hardest?

There are many methods to predicting, and while none of them can even be qualified as scientific, there are trusted voices in the din that people look to to see a glimpse of what might happen with real estate markets around the country.

Mark Zandi is one of those voices. He works for Moody’s economy.com, and he has taken it upon himself to attempt to formulate a prediction as to which housing markets are doomed and which may get off easy.

The results? Zandi predicts dire results in Cape Coral, Florida, where he sees a decline in home values of almost 19 percent. Reno, Nevada will be hard hit as well, with a predicted 17% drop in housing prices. Stockton, California will also be creamed, suffering from a 15% drop. How did Zandi come up with these numbers? His recipe consisted of a few heaping helpings of supply and demand, a generous serving of changes in local mortgage rates, a smidge of demographic trends, a teaspoon of job market analysis and a pinch of new housing numbers.

A second, and far less analytical prediction method is floating around, too. Traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange can actually trade real estate futures in ten different housing markets. Their findings? San Diego will be the hardest hit, with declines around 8 percent. Los Angeles won’t be much better off, with an expected decline in value of just under 7 percent. Las Vegas, which many people see as being over valued because of the endless influx of new residents in the last 20 years, is predicted to see a drop of almost 8 percent.

There were several areas where the two predictions matched. Both predicted almost the exact same decline in San Diego and in Washington D.C.

But there were also major differences. Boston, which has already been taking the brunt of the current housing market is predicted by Zandi to only see an increase of just over 2 percent in value lost. The CME traders, however, see a continued decline of 7 percent.

While no one knows for sure what’s going to happen, the one thing pretty much everyone agrees on now is that the market is headed south. The best choice might be to just hang onto that property until things start going your way again, but it’s anyone’s prediction as to how long that is going to be.

A recent downturn in gas prices has come as a welcome relief to most drivers in North America. The timing, however, of the price drop has many people thinking conspiracy theory. A recent poll of Americans showed that a staggering 42 percent of respondents believe that George W. Bush and the ruling Republican administration in Washington lowered gas prices in time for the November 2006 mid-term elections. While this may or may not be the case, the various stock markets around the world do have a real time impact on the price of oil, and therefore gasoline.

The biggest culprit in the lowering of gas prices might actually be Mother Nature. In preparation for the upcoming hurricane season, many investors on Wall Street and around the world invested heavily in gas and oil futures, guessing that another direct hit by a Katrina-like storm directly on gas and oil pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico would send prices through the roof like they did last year. But a recent correction by hurricane forecasters who downgraded the 2006 hurricane season caused the price of oil to plummet and all those investors who bought futures to cry.

But it wasn’t just the hurricanes that did it. The announcement coincided with the end of the summer season for drivers, which also dragged down the price of oil. The price of oil over this time fell off the table, going from an August 7th high of $77 a barrel to $58 a barrel in October. It doesn’t take long for this drop in prices to be felt at the pump.

This seismic shift in oil and gas prices over such a short amount of time left many investors in deep financial trouble. At least one mutual fund that was invested heavily in oil and gas futures went belly up due to this dramatic drop in prices. At the same time, there were other funds that did quite well despite the portfolio-ruining drop in oil prices. As they say in sports, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

While it may be naive to think that global politics never plays a part in the world’s commodity markets, it is unlikely that the sole reason for the massive and speedy drop in oil prices was due to upcoming elections. The number of variables that play on the world’s stocks, bonds and commodities is too vast in number to be influenced completely on one country’s elections.