The Beginning

Hello, my name is Loren and I'm starting a new financial blog. Currently, I'm just beginning the process of buying a house. I'm at the very beginning stages, and I'm going to try to be as transparent about this process as I can. I'll also be going over other financial related stuff on this blog, along with helpful links and tips I come across.
I'll begin with an explanation of where I am as of now. I have not begun more than just trying to get my ducks in a row. I ran a credit report on all three bureaus just over a year ago, and all of them came back with good stuff. I did have one negative thing on a single report from a residence over 5 years ago. It is a debt that went to collections on cleanup costs for an apartment. I won't bore you with the details of why I owe the money or why I didn't pay (Unless you want to hear about it), but since then I've had nothing but on-time payments. I've increased my overall credit since the report was run, and I've kept my debt-to-credit ratio at a decent level.
Currently I am paying around $800 in rent to my parents, which is basically paying their mortgage payment on the house I'm living in. I did some research at BankRate.com and determined that I could hope for a rate around 4% and with that I could easily afford a $100,000 home with a 30 year mortgage.
I've also been watching my credit score using CreditSesame.com. The site will keep your credit score up to date, and it uses the same 300-850 scoring as the real FICO scoring system does, but I don't think what they give you is a true FICO score. Currently my score is 772, which has earned me their Excellent Credit Badge.