Those are some good points. I'm gonna do some calling around and I don't plan on signing contracts to be exclusive. Thank you for your help

That's good news because I was a little stressed on having to get the pre approval before the realtor, it didn't make sense to do it in that order. Do you have any advice on what to look for in a realtor? I want to work with someone good

I've been told to not find a realtor until I already have the pre approval letter but I really want to start networking with one soon. I need to find out if the houses in my area are going for list price or going like 30k over list price. Once I can figure out how much over list price they're going for I can figure out how much to save before talking to a lender.

Time to save up and move out, hopefully I'll be in a new house by February

I think USDA loans are the only loans that have 0% down, and that is an option for me based on the area we're looking in, but regardless, I'm going to need money for closing cost and leverage when submitting an offer letter.

I wasn't sure because when I applied for an auto loan pre-approval letter, my bank didn't ask for how much money I had on hand, I wasn't sure if it was different for mortgages. Thank you