I’m no expert, but I’ve bought and sold two houses in my life. Just finished selling one (and buying it not long before that; long story), so the process is somewhat fresh in my mind.

A counterpoint to @SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org’s advice: find a realtor you really trust and then just let them handle everything. Do whatever they tell you to do. Maybe you pay another $10-20k than if you had absolutely optimized everything, but who cares? More likely than not, in trying to figure everything out yourself, you’d screw up something and end up losing way more than that, not to mention your well-being.

I met my last realtor in a Toastmasters group. Fantastic guy. I asked him about everything. I still reasoned about things myself and ultimately made the decisions myself, but it was incredibly reassuring to have his expertise to lean on. I never once got a sense he was working for the highest commission he could get. No decent realtor is going to risk pissing you off and having you tell your friends bad things about them for another $300 commission on top of the $8-15k they’re going to make regardless. It’s not even worth fighting about it for $300 when they could just get the deal done, lose $300 in potential commissions, and move on to the next deal.

Are there bad realtors? Yes. My advice on that is just not to hire one of them (or fire them if you accidentally do) 😉, but the idea that you’re going to be able to cross all your 't’s and dot your 'i’s (or even figure out enough to know where the 't’s and 'i’s are) doing it yourself on your first go-round sounds like a bit of a long-shot to me.

Oh, and @wheeville@beehaw.org’s advice to start by getting pre-approved is solid. Your realtor will probably want you to do this anyway before you start looking, so you’ll be ahead of the game.