There are always going to be plenty of surprises when finding your first home. These may be good, bad or a little bit of both. If you are in the process of finding your first home or are debating if buying a home is the right choice for you, hearing some stories from recent first time homebuyers may help you understand some of the realities.

An Easy Approval- Jon Briscoe from Cincinnati was surprised at how fast he was approved for a loan. "Basically, all I did was give the mortgage brokers the last two years of my employment history, my history of income and some pay stubs" said Briscoe. The broker did the rest of the work and from the date he bought his home it took less than a month to close. But he was even more surprised to find out that his credit score of 700 was far past the 630 score that lenders usually grant as decent.

A Quick Home Buying Process - For first-timers Bryce and Danielle Johnson, what surprised them most was "the amount of time that it actually took to find a place that we wanted was much shorter than anticipated." Their secret was lots of research and a great real estate agent. Their agent was constantly giving them feedback and answering to the Johnson's demands. The Johnson's research helped them to narrow down their search for homes even more. Due to this they only had to see 3 homes before they made their final decision.

Don't Expect Much- Sandi Elliott was looking for a home and knew that she was tight on money and that she did not want to be house poor. She decided to look in to foreclosures because she thought the prices would work better for her. But she got a rude surprise. All the foreclosures she saw were very trashed and needed lots of TLC. "We saw one after the other that was just trashed, and I didn't look in what you'd call bad neighborhoods." Many frustrated homeowners, forced to leave their homes, have been known to trash their homes on the way out. Sandi ended up buying a condo that was not a foreclosure and she is very glad she did. With any kind of foreclosure, "my take is you can pretty much expect that you're going to have to fix it," she says. "There's a lot of money in that, and a lot of time."