Rent VS Buy

Well, I think that Matt & I have decided to buy a home in Rochester.

This kind of terrifies me.

It's also exciting.  But mostly, it is scary.

It would be one thing if we could pop over and look at listings as we found them, but since we can't, its pretty overwhelming.  However the monthly cost of rent VS buy, in today's market highly favors the buyer with good credit (which is us).  It would probably save us at least $300/month to buy over what we would pay in rent (yes, even factoring all the additional little costs that actually make your mortgage a couple hundred bucks more than you think its going to be).  Not to mention that we could also be way more selective about getting what is important to us in a home (IE a 2 car garage so that we don't have to shovel our cars out every morning, being in the right school district for Lily, location in relation to the Mayo Clinic, etc)

Matt and I have almost bought here in the valley several times over the last 5 years, even getting pre-approved and getting a realtor at one point.  However we just could never find a house we felt quite right about.  I felt OK.  Never horrible.  Just not good.  So we never bought.  Renting is just SO much more stress free and EASIER!!  So it REALLY surprises me that we are going to buy now. 

I knew I would consider it, because I always like to keep an open mind and consider my options so that I can feel confident that I made the best possible choice.  However, I really thought that with us unsure of whether we will be staying the shortest amount of time possible (2.5 years), the medium choice (4.5 years), or longer (indefinitely), we wouldn't want to have to worry about buying/selling.  But we feel good about pursuing the buying option at this point.  Which really stresses me out since buying a house is stressful enough but buying one in a city you aren't familiar with 2,000 miles away, as a first time home buyer is lots more stressful.

SO HERE IS MY QUESTION FOR ALL YOU HOMEOWNERS OUT THERE:

Are you happy with your mortgage?  Who is it through? Would you recommend them?  Any mortgage tips? 

We will probably get a 30 year fixed, and put like 10 grand down.  I hesitate to put too much down, even if it gets us a better rate, because we are going to have a lot of moving costs, plus need to buy lots of furniture, school expenses, etc, so I want to have at least 10 grand to cover those bases, plus emergency money, and not be totally cleaned out.  We may end up putting 15 grand down, it just depends on whether or not the house is going to need appliances etc.  We are looking in the $120-150,000 price range BTW, which in Minnesota will actually buy you a pretty decent house! (so we will probably be putting 10% down)