When you go to buy a house, you will probably have high hopes; you may think that you are going to go see a realtor, get approved for a loan and find the perfect house right away. While these are nice thoughts, it generally isn't the way it goes. There can be a lot of different bumps in the road, so you want to be sure to mentally prepare yourself for some of the hassles that may come along while you are on the home buying path.

Understand that many things may be flexible:

If you find a house you really like, but the price is a bit more than you can pay, you may not want to discredit it too soon. Let your realtor know the level of interest you have in the property and they can look into some of the specifics of the listing to let you know if they feel you have a good chance of possibly getting it for a lower price.

You may like a house, but there could also be things about it that you aren't happy with. For example, you could find a house that offers you just about everything that you are looking for in your next place, but it could be in need of some repairs. If the house needs something specific, such as a new rook or new carpet, then you may be able to get the sellers to include a roof or carpet allowance in the deal, so you will have the necessary money to take care of these things. There are many times a benefit to having the work done yourself and that is that you will be in control of choosing the materials, so you get the style or coloring that you would prefer.

Know that you can ask for different things – You may be surprised at the different things or 'contingencies' that you can ask for. Basically, you can ask for just about anything and the sellers can agree to those contingencies or not agree to them. If you are concerned that you aren't going to be able to afford the closing costs, or you just want to cut down on your own expenses, then you can ask for the closing costs to be covered by the seller, as well as some of the other costs. Also, if you have been preapproved for enough and you want the seller to cover closing costs, you may be able to offer them over asking price, so they won't actually be losing out on any money by doing so.

You can also ask for a certain amount of time with regards to the Escrow process as well. If you would like to close Escrow as soon as possible, then you'll want to ask for an expedited Escrow. However, if you still have some things to wrap up and you would like the process to take a bit longer, then you can also go ahead and ask for this.