You might want to consider bringing a camera and taking pictures of the various homes you visit. After about the fourth home, you will begin to have difficulty remembering details without notes. Obtaining loan approval before finding a home and making the offer to purchase empowers the Buyer Agent and significantly enhances the Buyer's bargaining power. Step 3 will cover this in greater detail. Your Agent has a wealth of information available to make this step easy for you.
Lets discuss the real estate market first.
This will enable the buyer to compare the fine points of their home of choice with both recently sold and currently available homes. With this data, the Buyer can make an informed decision on what to offer for that wonderful home they like so much. The closer your offer is to the asking price, the more likely you are to get it. In some cases, you may even want to offer more than the asking price to improve your chances of getting the home. By now, the wise Buyer will have made loan application and either been approved or be close enough to approval that a Lender Opinion Letter can be obtained.