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Here’s a great (and common) example of Equivocation, Cherry Picking, and the False Analogy:Seems reasonable, right?The problem is that every one of these lines hides critical dissimilarities that make the respective comparisons invalid.Title at Each Point of SaleOK, but for a car, the title exists primarily to ensure documentary proof of ownership in case of a dispute, since cars are the second most valuable piece of property most people are likely to own.It is perfectly legal in every State I’m aware of to sell a car without formally transferring the title—it’s just usually a bad idea for the buyer, and may impede their ability to get the vehicle registered for travel on public ways. But if my buddy has an old, beat-up pickup, and I want to buy it just to use on my farm (not on public roads), there is no law (again, in any State I’m aware of) that prevents me from just handing him $1,000 cash and receiving the keys.The ability to track a car owner by the title is purely incidental, and proving that a car is deeded in X’s name is not sufficient to hold X responsible for whatever happens with it.For a gun, the suggestion made by gun control proponents is that it ought to be illegal to transfer a gun without documenting the transfer, and the primary reason is not to forestall disputes over the lawful ownership of the gun (which may only be worth a few hundred dollars), but to enable government tracking of who owns what guns and where.Tag at Each Point of SaleFor a car, the “tag” (i.e., license plate) is required only to drive on public roads,* and serves as a visible identifier of the vehicle for purposes of traffic enforcement. It has nothing to do with forensic investigations of vehicular felonies—though it is often incidentally useful for that purpose.Also, again, it is perfectly legal to sell a car without “tags”—it just can’t be driven on public streets. But that busted, old pickup? I can buy it without plates, never put any plates on it, and it will still be legal.*[Ever wonder why NASCAR cars have no plates? Because they’re not ever going to drive on public ways, so they don’t need them.]There is simply no equivalent for a gun. A per-gun “gun license” would apply even to guns kept entirely on private property, would not serve as a visible identifier of a gun in use, would exist solely for the purpose of investigating crimes (a purpose for which it is nearly useless—most States with gun registries are able to use them to meaningful advantage in criminal investigations only once or twice a year), and would be legally mandated for every transfer.TrainingFirst—and I’ll keep coming back to this—a driver’s license is only required at all to drive on public roads. But an unlicensed 14-year-old can race Formula 1 racers all day long.Second, in most States, formal training of any sort is not required for licensure, as long as you pass the test. Driver’s Ed is helpful—but it’s not mandatory.Third, Driver’s Ed doesn’t actually teach you to be a good driver. It teaches you how to operate a car in conformance to the laws of the road.So, “gun training like driver training” would be optional, and would not actually focus on shooting skill but on how to carry lawfully in public (e.g., “don’t brandish”, “here are the lawful modes of carry”, etc.).But what the gun control proponents want is more like, “Minimum X hours of mandatory range time with a certified instructor (of which we will make sure there are very few). Or else you can’t have a gun.”Written TestOK, this is the one line where there’s a valid comparison. We could have a written test on gun laws the way we do on rules of the road.The only problem is that the written test for a driver’s license is already bullshit.It requires you to memorize obscure aspects of traffic law that you will certainly forget within a year (e.g., hand signals, identifying obscure road signs by shape alone), and gives you an “incorrect” result if you give an answer that is more strict than the actual law (e.g., if you answer that legal BAC is 0.05 rather than 0.08… because you might kill someone by being too sober, right?).It’s not a test of whether you know enough to be a safe driver—it’s a test of whether you studied the guide well enough to jump through the desired hoops.I have no doubt that any written gun licensure test would be the same—questions like, “What is the minimum legal barrel length of a gun with a shoulder stock and rifled barrel?” (And oh, by the way, you fail if you say 16″ rather than “Any length, as long as you have an NFA tax stamp.”)It would serve no legitimate purpose—but then, neither do most of the questions on the written driver’s test.Practical TestAgain, for cars, this is only required for a license to drive on public roads.Further, it tests only your ability to operate within the rules of the road—not your skill at driving.Things like, “Merge onto the highway, using proper signaling,” not “Cross four lanes of highway traffic at 70 mph before you miss your exit a quarter-mile ahead, then take the hairpin exit, all without harming the cake you’re transporting in the back seat.”You can be a bad driver and still get a license, as long as the State is reasonably confident you won’t cause a major crash.So, a direct equivalent for guns would be, “Are you capable of carrying this gun in public without shooting anyone? Are you capable of drawing and re-holstering the gun without shooting anyone including yourself? Are you capable of loading, unloading, and clearing the chamber? OK, cool, you pass.”And if you fail, you still get your gun, but can’t carry it in public (until you retake the test next month).But what gun control proponents want is more like, “Can you field strip and reassemble this firearm? Can you shoot to within X degree of accuracy (where X is 50% stricter than the graduation requirements at the police academy)? Can you pass a MiB-style shoot-or-no-shoot drill? No? Sorry, no gun for you.”(Yes, I’m exaggerating—but the point is the difference between “bare minimum competence under everyday circumstances” versus “high degree of competence in uncommon scenarios”.)Health RequirementsUhh… yeah. There are, I suppose, “health requirements” for a driver’s license.Things like, “Can you see?” or “Do you have untreated narcolepsy?” or “Do you have functional arms?”Basically variants on, “Are you physically capable of driving, and if you drive a car, will you wrap it around a damn tree due to health complications?”What they don’t do is say, “You need a mandatory mental health evaluation, and if we find you may be prone to road rage, vehicular suicide, emotional driving, or voting Republican, then no license for you.”There’s really no equivalent for guns.A person who is physically incapable of using a gun isn’t going to buy one, but isn’t any particular threat if they do, and there are no major medical disorders that would cause someone to be inherently unsafe with a gun (no, not even grand mal seizures—because the odds of having a seizure in the moment that you’re holding a gun with a finger inside the trigger guard are infinitesimal).What gun control proponents want is the ability to disqualify gun buyers for mental health issues short of a judicial determination of incompetence. And when you listen to the actual list of things they think should be disqualifying, it becomes quite apparent that it would serve as a plausible pretext to deny anyone that the permitting authority wishes to deny. (I have even encountered one or two who will outright and unironically state that they believe the desire to own a gun for any purpose other than hunting is evidence of a mental disorder.)Liability InsuranceCar insurance is, again, only mandatory to register a vehicle to drive on public roads.Further, the insurance covers accidents, and sometimes negligent misconduct by the insured, and it is priced based on many factors including the overall likelihood of an insured event and the individual risk factors of the insured.It does not cover damages caused to third parties by a car thief (except possibly in the act of theft), deliberate criminal conduct by the insured, or acts of gross negligence. It most certainly does not cover suicides.It also has coverage limits—sure, a car accident might be capable of causing a 10-car pileup totaling $2 million in damages, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry a $2 million policy.What gun control proponents want for “gun insurance” is a policy that would be required to cover all harm caused by the gun (including if it’s stolen and someone else uses it to commit murder), with minimum coverage calibrated to cover at least the value of a wrongful death suit, and with premiums priced to “force gun owners to internalize the true cost of gun violence” (i.e., make them responsible not only for their own risk, but for all the gun crime in the country as well, and gun suicides to boot).What would actually be analogous to car insurance (ignoring the “only in public” thing) would be, honestly, a policy that would have premiums so low that no insurer would bother—because there are only roughly 500 fatal gun accidents per year and roughly 19,000 nonfatal accidental shootings (out of well over 100 million gun owners… and we don’t know that all those accidents are even with legal guns), so the actuarial risk that any given covered gun owner would be responsible for a covered accident would be trivial.Remember—the goal of insurance pricing is to ensure that the amount paid in premiums is higher than the amount paid out, over a given time period, but not too much higher, because the premiums also need to seem fair to the client.So, if we say the average wrongful death payout is ~$1 million (that’s probably a bit high) and the average cost of a nonfatal gunshot injury is ~$150,000[1][1][1][1] then a hypothetical insurer who insures every gun owner would pay out ~$2.8 billion per year (if we assume every gun accident is attributable to a legally-owned gun—which is, of course, not true).Spreading that out across even a bare 100 million gun owners would yield a $28.00 per year premium (say, $35/year to account for profit)… with discounts after X years without a claim and so forth, just like car insurance.And because the risk either does not increase with number of guns owned, or increases by a factor far less than 1x per gun (we can remain agnostic on the details for these purposes), it wouldn’t be $35 per year per gun but closer to a flat $35 per year.This means that even a “high risk” policy (e.g., child in the home, no gun safe) wouldn’t likely go above $100 per year. Semiautomatic rifles, incidentally, would qualify for lower premiums, since most gun accidents occur with handguns, shotguns, and bolt-action “hunting rifles”.Periodic RenewalsA driver’s license renewal is a purely bureaucratic process, intended simply to ensure that the photo and identifying information remain current. You do not (at least in the absence of very advanced age or significant health issues) need to requalify each time you renew.Additionally, these requirements are at least in part because a driver’s license has taken on a role as a primary photo-ID, even though that is not its original purpose. (For instance, were it not used as ID, there would be little reason for a driver’s license alone to contain address information.)There is no equivalent need for a gun license (assuming one is required at all). It would not be a primary photo-ID for more than a negligible subset of gun owners, so there would be little reason to have frequent renewals. If a renewal were required (say, every 10 years), there would be no justifiable reason not to do it by mail.Periodic InspectionsAn annual car inspection is intended to ensure that emissions levels are within legal parameters and that the car is at least minimally road-worthy. That is, it’s an inspection for mechanical safety and to curb pollution.It is also done at a service station, by a private mechanic whose only interest is in whether or not it passes the specific tests he is legally instructed to run. No government agent comes to your home garage and checks whether it is properly ventilated or how you store your gas can, nor does he get to “keep an eye out” during the tests for any incidental legal violations of things other than the safety and emissions standards (e.g., after-market window tints, disabled seatbelt alarm, etc.).Further, if you fail the inspection, you just can’t drive the car on public ways until you fix the problem and pass an inspection. Your car is not confiscated, nor is your license revoked.There is no equivalent for guns.Guns do not produce ambient pollution when used, they remain mechanically sound for decades unless significantly abused, and accidental injuries due to mechanical failure of firearms are very nearly unheard-of in the modern era.The “inspections” generally urged by gun control proponents are UK-style inspections of the gun owner’s home to ensure “safe storage”, and are aimed at finding potential criminal violations, not mechanical deficiencies in the firearm.And if you fail an inspection, they want to take your guns away—possibly including your right to own any more guns for the rest of your life (since you’d then be guilty of a criminal firearms offense…).Of course, there’s also the incompleteness of the comparison, highlighting only the aspects that the proponents want to focus on.If guns were actually regulated like cars…I could walk into the dealership, pay cash, and leave with a new gun 30 minutes later.Even if I had no license, I could get it delivered to my home, even across State lines.I could own a gun as a convicted felon.Even if I had lost my gun rights for actual gun crimes, I could get a “Cinderella license” to allow me to carry guns under limited criteria for occupational purposes.My right to carry a gun in one State would be valid in all 50 States and D.C.I could own a gun at any age and carry one in public starting at age 16 in most States.I could modify my gun any way I want, without permission from anyone and without notifying anyone.Even if the mods made it no longer public-carry-legal [road-legal], I could still keep and use it on my own property (or the private property of any willing third party).Technical violations of gun laws that haven’t actually harmed anyone (e.g., improper transport, improper storage, carrying in a school zone, “printing” while carrying concealed) would be mere civil infractions punishable by a low-cost ticket.I wouldn’t need a tax stamp to own a muffler… or even to own a “silent running” electric car.[OK, I admit, this last comparison is itself fallacious—I threw it in just for snark.]This isn’t about whether gun control is good or bad.This isn’t about whether it should or shouldn’t be easier to get a gun than a car (but FYI, it definitely isn’t easier right now).This also isn’t about the legalities of gun control, which is why I haven’t mentioned, “Gun ownership is a protected constitutional right and car ownership is not.”It’s about bad arguments. It’s about lazy comparisons that are treated as “incisive” or as “zingers” when they are actually aimed solely at those who don’t know any better.Anyone who argues to “regulate guns like cars” almost certainly:Is being deliberately disingenuous,Hasn’t thought it through very carefully,Has little or no idea how guns are currently regulated,Has little or no idea how cars are currently regulated, orTwo or more of the above.But whether intentional or inadvertent, this is one of the most common fallacious arguments I see on a regular basis.Original Question:“What are the most common fallacies in political debates on the internet?”Footnotes[1] Costs of gunshot and cut/stab wounds in the United States, with some Canadian comparisons - PubMed[1] Costs of gunshot and cut/stab wounds in the United States, with some Canadian comparisons - PubMed[1] Costs of gunshot and cut/stab wounds in the United States, with some Canadian comparisons - PubMed[1] Costs of gunshot and cut/stab wounds in the United States, with some Canadian comparisons - PubMed

Thanks for the A2AAgriculture as a whole accounted for 13.7% of the GDP and about 50% of the total workforce. Hence, it is important economically as well as politically.To understand the situation, we need to look at the big picture and the various issues involved in this sector.Here is the overall scenario of Indian farmer’s condition:1. Inputsa. Finance and Know-howAs you can imagine, for such a major political group, there is no dearth of goodies from the central and state government in the form of:a. Income tax exemption for agricultural incomeb. Subsidies like fertilizer, farm equipment and electricityc. Loan facility from PSU banks and NABARDd. Crop insurancee. Knowledge bank for inputs: seeds / fertilizers, scientific farm practices and weather, monsoon dataAs with all policies in India, plan is always good but the implementation part has massive scope for improvement. Both reach and effectiveness need to be enhanced to deal with the sad reality of farmer suicide.b. IrrigationBy and large the irrigation facilities available in India are far from adequate. So for half of the total area under food crops has been brought under irrigation and the remaining half is left to the mercy of monsoon rains which are erratic in time and space.c. Land Size and FertilityThe pressure of increasing population and the practice of dividing land equally among the heirs has caused excessive sub divisions of farm holdings. The small size of holdings makes farming activity uneconomical and leads to social tension, violence and discontentment.Indian soils have been used for growing crops for thousands of years which have resulted in the depletion of soil fertility. With deforestation the sources of maintaining natural fertility of soil has been drying out.2. MarketAPMC act was introduced to avoid the financial exploitation of the farmers by the local village lender who operated to ensure that the farmer remains perennially in debt. However, the APMC act has huge problems of its own:Under APMC Act,A State is geographically divided and Market (Mandis) are established at different places within the states.Farmers have to sell their produce through the auction @mandi.To operate in Mandi, a trader has to get license.Wholesale, retail traders (e.g. shopping mall owner) or food processing company etc cannot buy farm output directly from farmer. They’ve to get it through the Mandi.Problems of the APMC Act:Inefficiency· As an example, official commission of the agent in Delhi Azadpur APMC market is 6% for auctioning the produce; 1% is the market fee. Unofficially, commissions go up to even 10-12%,· Add all the expenses and commissions of wholesalers and vendors, and the prices easily more than double by the time products come to the consumers’ doorsteps.· Inadequate storage and processing facilities leading to wastage and/or contaminationMiddlemen benefit at the cost of farmers and consumersDelayed and/or Incomplete PaymentsAvoidance of payment receipts to farmer to avoid taxPrice Fixing / Manipulation – low prices aren’t passed to consumer and high prices aren’t passed to farmers.The government declares minimum support prices (MSP) for many cereal, pulses and oilseeds crops=> middleman @APMC cannot exploit the farmers beyond a level (otherwise he can sell it to the FCI) but for fruits and veggies, government doesn’t declare minimum support prices giving ample room to the middlemen.That explains why, in the recent food inflation spike, finance minister Mr Arun Jaitely advised state governments to take fruits and veggies out of the APMC ambit.Trading LicenseOperator license needed to trade in APMC marketThe license is available at a heavy investment and hence the trader finds ways to recover the investmentThe number of traders and intermediaries have not kept pace with the growth of output and leads to possibility of hoarding and cartelization.To complicate matters further, the APMC act mechanism lies with the state governments. The Central government has tried to solve above problems by circulating the model APMC act to states. Some states even adopted a modified version of the model act. But the problems still remain and the government is exploring various options to create a national free market for agricultural products.3. Food Corporation of IndiaThe Food Corporation of India (FCI) is entrusted with implementation of food grains policy particularly for rice and wheat. FCI or the designated agency of state government procures paddy and wheat from the farmers and rice mills at minimum support price (MSP).Wheat and paddy/ rice procured thus are used to meet the demand for public distribution system, buffer stocks, price stabilization and other welfare measures.While FCI has played an important role in food security, it is generally considered a failure in proper storage of food grains, with reports saying several million tonne grains were badly damaged and unfit for human consumption. Of course, this wastage ultimately becomes cause of fiscal deficit and inflation.The stocks are transported throughout India and issued to the State Government nominees at the rates declared by the Govt of India for further distribution under the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the consumption of the ration card holders. (FCI itself does not directly distribute any stock under PDS and its operations end at the exit of the stock from its depots).The difference between the purchase price and sale price, along with internal costs, are reimbursed by the Union Government in the form of Food Subsidy. Currently the food subsidy stands at about USD 10 billion.The inefficiency of PDS is another iconic area in itself and the subject of many Bollywood films, like this one:The government now proposes to breakup FCI into three - one each for procurement , storage and distribution in order to increase efficiency.4. Land AcquisitionComing to your last question, land acquisition is a very delicate topic. For starters, here is a very good discussion about the history, modus-operandi and future:Why the BJP is finding it hard to resist the lure of old-style land acquisitionMy personal take is that the land acquisition law cannot be made so hard that all projects get stuck and the economy comes to a standstill. In this case, even the farmers don’t gain because ultimately they get paid only when old projects get completed and new ones come up.We need a clear policy and constructive environment, possible only with clear intentions and competence of the government. This is one of the major tasks of the Modi government in pursuit of “Acche Din”!

I’ve bought a house exactly once, and that was about 15 years ago, as of this writing. I am not a real estate agent or anything like that. However, since many of the answers here so far seem to me to be either biased or incomplete, or both, I’ll take a stab at this, from a buyer’s point of view. Please do your own research, and consult a professional for guidance specific to your needs and to your area.Also, I live in that part of California known as Silicon Valley. If you’re somewhere else, and especially if you are in some other country, you will have different rules, climate, and market forces, so keep that in mind, and please take the time to learn about your own.Start learning, way ahead of timeThis answer is not the only place to do that, and probably a partial table of contents, at best.The process of learning about home ownership should start from the moment you consider owning a house, and should continue as long as you own it. For most people, a house is their largest single investment. It’s kind of a peculiar savings vehicle. You live in it. (I don’t know anyone who lives in a money market account.) Also, it is a large, illiquid asset, meaning it’s relatively hard to get the money out of it.Your local public library should be a good source of relatively unbiased information. Please visit it. When my husband and I bought this house, we checked out something like 10 books (they were all free!) on home-buying and home ownership. We each took a stack of them and dug through them in search of specific stuff we still needed or wanted to know. Even though it wasn’t the only way we learned, I wish we’d given ourselves more time for that exercise than the night before we decided to make an offer. Either way, I’m glad we did it.In the U.S. the nice folks at Nolo Press have produced some excellent guides on exactly this sort of subject, including expert advice on what you can reasonably accomplish yourself, and when you should consult a professional. Whether you borrow from your library or invest in your own copy, I highly recommend them.Start saving money and building creditSaving money and building good credit are good things to do whether or not you ever buy a house. Your savings could save you down the road in high-interest debt that you don’t have to take on, or simply provide the comfort of knowing you can weather a job loss should you need to. If you do decide to take out a loan for some other reason (such as to purchase a car), you’ll get a much better deal on it if you have good credit. Even insurers, prospective landlords, and employers may check your credit at various times.There’s lots written on this subject already, here on Quora [What are the best ways to save money?, What's the best way to save for a down payment?] and elsewhere around the web. If you’re new to personal finance, go visit your library or start looking around online for good advice about that, too. (Here again, the details also vary by country.) I’ll reiterate a few of the things you should be doing.Earn more, if you can. Maybe that means asking for a raise, or getting some additional training or education. Maybe that means shopping your resume around, or taking a side job.Get a credit card, use it moderately, and pay it off in full each month. That’s the balance, not the minimum payment.Keep current on your utility payments and any credit card or loan payments you are making.Pay down debt, particularly any with a high interest rate. Avoid taking on new debt.Check your credit score once per year (for free, online) and correct/report any errors. In between, read your credit card statements and be on the lookout for charges you didn’t make.Spend less. You know best what that means to you. Go for the big things first, especially recurring expenses. Shop around your insurance. Share your space with a roommate or family member. Use public transit, ride a bike, or keep an older car in good repair.Set aside money toward your down payment. One tactic which works for a lot of people is called “pay yourself first.” It simply means setting aside your savings in a separate account, before you spend it. If your pay arrives by direct deposit, you should be able to automate it so part gets deposited in your savings upon arrival.Get your spouse/significant other on board.Do the exercise about renting vs. buyingThere are calculators online to help you run the numbers based on home prices, mortgage rates, and rental rates in your area, and how long you expect to stay.Keep in mind, too, that you’re likely to be in charge of all the maintenance on a place you own. Are you the sort who picks up the phone to install a towel rod or assemble a kit bookcase? Or are you willing to try laying your own tile or pouring a concrete patio? You can own a home either way, but the balance of money and time will be different.Don’t omit tax consequences, including mortgage interest deduction and property taxes. Also, what used to be having a roommate pay his/her share of the rent will look to you like income when you’re the landlord.Get to know the areaIf you’re new to an area, or even just new to an intended city or neighborhood, it’s wise to rent there for awhile, at least six months to a year. You will learn which directions commute traffic gets hairy on weekday mornings. You will learn which are the good neighborhoods and the good schools, and which are perhaps up-and-coming neighborhoods or areas to shy away from. You will know if there are noisy parties Saturday nights near the university or incessant construction on an area that’s being built or rebuilt. You will learn where transit is, and isn’t, what is under the approach for an airport, and whether the trains go all night.Also be on the lookout for cultural mismatches. I certainly don’t advocate for racial or cultural homogeneity, but there are places I wouldn’t fit in and be comfortable. (I’m an atheist, a liberal, and enthusiastically frugal. I’d welcome being proved wrong, but I doubt I’d feel very much at home in Redneck, USA, or that I’d satisfy any group of neighbors who demanded tasteful makeup and a fancy, late-model car or two in every driveway, alongside the manicured lawn. Such places exist.)Start attending open houses. There are a whole bunch of reasons to do this, even if you think you may be a few years out from buying.You’ll get to know about typical housing prices, along with trends in your area. This is helpful for spotting good deals, and also for spotting not-so-good deals.You’ll learn your own tastes, along with how to look at a house. Start making a wish list of things you want (mine included stairs, and a pantry) and things you don’t want (mine included a swimming pool and homeowner’s association). If you later work with a real estate agent, such a list will help them to narrow your search.You’ll meet real estate agents in your area. Time permitting (yours and theirs), pick their brains. Ask your questions about buying houses and about the local market. How long do most listings here stay on the market? Do they sell for more or less than the asking price? What is your best advice for [first-time homeowners/families with children/etc.]? How difficult or costly is it to fix or remodel a particular thing? What are typical closing costs like? You will be learning (there’s that word again!) as well as shopping for a real estate agent who might be a good fit for you. If you find a promising one, take a card or flyer. They’ll be glad to hear from you, even if it’ll be a while before you contact them.Figure out your budgetBy this point, you should have some idea of your regular expenses. You should have some idea of your savings rate, and whether you’ll try to put a full 20% down (to avoid primary mortgage insurance, or PMI). You should have no trouble finding online tools about how much loans cost per month, how much loan they say you can afford, and so on. Assuming you cease to pay rent shortly after you buy, figure out how much house you can afford, and how much you can afford comfortably.If you can, don’t drain your bank accounts to the bottom. You’ll probably need money early on to buy appliances and furnishings, and there are up-front costs associated with buying a house. Plus, you will need to eat, and make those first few house payments.Note that I haven’t yet said “get a real estate agent.” You can if you want, but at this stage I’d do at least a basic budget without their help. If you’d like to get help from a real estate agent at this point, ask what typical fees and closing costs look like. Ask for help figuring your annual property taxes, or estimating your PMI if you won’t be putting 20% down. You might still prefer to keep data like your income private.Choose a real estate agentNothing requires you to work with a real estate agent, but it’s a pretty good idea, especially if you can find one you really trust, and especially if it’s your first time buying. Real estate agents have experience completing the big, messy transaction that is buying a house. They also have access to listings and showings which you, as a mere member of the general public, may not.Your real estate agent has a built-in conflict of interest. It’s weird, and almost nobody talks about it, but it’s true. Your real estate agent works on commission, and that commission is paid by the seller.It looks like this. For the sake of round numbers, say the sale price of the house is $100,000. Typically, both the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent each get 3%.So you, the buyer, pay the $100,000 to the seller. Out of that money, the seller then pays $3,000 to her own agent, and $3,000 to yours. That means your agent gets paid more if you buy a costlier house.Most of the time, this is not an issue, largely because your agent gets paid only if you actually buy a house. However, it does mean two things.Choose an agent whom you really trust as a person, to give you good advice and work hard with you. Not because she talks a big talk or he wears a nice tie.Ultimately, you need to be the one looking out for your own interests.If you didn’t meet someone at an open house who really impressed you, or if you’d like others to choose from, ask around for referrals from neighbors, coworkers, or others who have bought in your area recently. Ask about their experiences, but also sit down with the person yourself and see what they’re like, and if they’re someone you can work with.The rest of this stuff could happen pretty quickly, especially in a hot market, so brace yourself, and be prepared to act decisively when the time comes. This is where all that learning should pay off, in confidence and very probably in money.Get pre-approved for a loanYou should be able to do this readily online, these days. It helps to send a message to a seller that your offer is likely to result in a sale.One caveat: don’t overdo it, and don’t drag out the process too long. Too many credit inquiries in close succession can lower your credit score. You should be able to shop around a little and get pre-approved without running into too much trouble.Choose a houseThere’s all sorts of advice out there about this one, too. Obviously, it’s a big decision, and one you’ll be living with for awhile. If you still have, or can now make, a wish list, it will help your agent to know what to look for and narrow down which ones to show you. It will also help keep you on track.You might spend some time considering how important it is to you to have any given item on the list. If you don’t want a swimming pool, but you otherwise love a house which comes with one, is that a deal-breaker, or would you be willing to give it a chance, or deal with removing it and filling it in? Share this with your agent, too.Use all you’ve learned about the area, about housing, and about yourself, to inform your choice.When you find the house, or you think you have narrowed it down, arrange to see the house more than once. Tour it again and look more thoroughly. Go by it in the evening and sit outside for awhile. Listen to the neighborhood, and notice what it’s like at that time of day. Go by on a Saturday and talk to some prospective future neighbors.Make an offerYour agent, if you choose to have one, will handle the communication at this point, and will help to prepare the correspondence. Your offer may well include details to “sell” yourself to the seller as a qualified, responsible buyer: you’re a nice, young [person/couple] starting out. You are approved for the loan already. You have so and so much money to put as a down payment.As further proof that you’re serious about buying the house, your offer will come with Earnest Money, basically a deposit. If your offer is accepted, earnest money counts toward the down payment on the house.If you’re offering lower than the asking price, you may state why. The stated reason should probably not be “because we can’t afford more right now.” It might be that the house has been on the market for awhile and hasn’t sold, or that the condition is not great.If you are in a particularly hot market (such as occurs cyclically in Silicon Valley), you may have to offer above the asking price, and you may have to be prepared to make the offer very quickly.Your agent should be able to help with strategy here, as well: knowing what price is or isn’t likely to fly, making your offer letter so it is convincing. Even choosing a not-so-round number to make the price look more specific or intentional.There may also be contingencies in the offer: the offer is good, provided the house passes inspections or certain deficiencies are repaired. (Some of these are built into laws with home sales.) If inspections find that something is really wrong with the house, you may also get your earnest money, or most of it, back.For you, the most important part of making an offer is to be prepared to pay what you say you are offering.Evaluate a counteroffer (maybe)At this point, the buyers should reply to you, either with acceptance of your offer, or with a counteroffer. In our case, they accepted our offer (somewhat lower than asking; it was a different market here than it is today), on the condition that we take the house “as-is.” We accepted, which meant we shouldered the cost for some required termite work, and took on a whole assortment of cleaning and minor repair work ourselves.If the sellers ask for a higher price, you’ll need to choose whether to pay that price. Again, your agent should help with the correspondence and can probably help with advice and strategy.Wait for a couple of months, get inspections, get your loan, and sign a sh**load of paperworkYour agent should help you with keeping on track and organized through the escrow period and process, but at some point, you’ll need to put in some time, too, and understand enough to look out for yourself. This section is incomplete, at best, so treat it as a starting point on what sorts of things to look out for, not necessarily a complete list or the order in which to do them. (Once again, I did this once, and I’m not a professional in any related field.) Oh, and keep asking questions.Get your loan, or at least lock in your rates. The final loan paperwork may come later in the process.Get inspections done. Read and understand them, and correct major problems, or make sure the sellers do.Connect with a title company. Title companies handle a mess of the paperwork involved in selling houses, making sure the money goes where it should, doing a title search to make sure there are no other owners or outstanding claims on the house, and making sure that your transaction proceeds correctly, and even that everyone involved is who they say they are. They’ll also take care of making sure your agents get their cut.Pay your down payment. It will probably go via the title company, and it will very likely be the largest single check you write in your lifetime. Someone should tell you in advance if it needs to be a cashier’s check or other special thing.Line up your home insurance. It’s probably going to be required by your loan and/or the title company.Pay loan fees, closing costs, and any partial share of property taxes.Figure out how you will take title to the house, especially if you are buying it with a spouse or partner. The details (which vary by state) are way beyond the scope of this answer, but they’re worth figuring out. It will matter again if you ever separate or divorce, or when either of you dies. You may also want to have another look, in the company of a lawyer who knows this stuff, at any prenuptial agreement, trust, or other property or estate-planning document you have (or should have).You may have hundreds of pages to sign before you’re done. One thing to remember is to always sign your name the way it is printed on the document: Johnathan Philip Smith, John Philip Smith, Johnathan P. Smith, etc. (If they’ve botched something and put Jason instead of John, you should probably send it back to be corrected—and be extra alert for other errors.)Give your landlord notice that you’ll be leaving. If you can afford a partial month of extra rent, you may want to allow at least a little overlap, so your move isn’t too rushed, and so that you don’t have to move to a storage unit and hotel, and back, if it takes the previous owners longer than expected to move out. (Having accepted the “as-is” counteroffer, we had a lot of cleaning and painting to do upon arrival. I was glad to stay in my old apartment for another couple of weeks while we got the first rooms habitable. We also moved a lot of our stuff one carload at a time, over the course of those weeks.)Get moving!With some luck, and some work, you should receive the key at the end of about two months of escrow. This part of the process is probably familiar to you already: hauling your belongings from the old home to the new one, settling in and finding your new life (it’s in a box here somewhere; I’m sure I packed it…), and changing your address with every institution known to man. (Don’t forget the DMV, the IRS, and the Registrar of Voters.)This is a good time to automate your mortgage payment and set reminders for stuff like insurance and property taxes.Then, settle in, enjoy your new home, and set about making it your own.