[jlstyle]

$1,200 per month for your home? I don't know much about Chicago real estate but where i live, with $1,200 you are basically buying a $180k~200k one bedroom shit hole apartment.
Yes it is your house, but why even bother buying such house? Your home value will NOT go up to cover your mortgage interest. You should stay away from those if you are planning to see some money when you sell. And usually shit hole apartment or single home means high maintenance or repair bill.

Couple things tips anyways:

1. Buying a car and buying a house is totally different.
2. Assuming you are getting a mortgage, you need followings:
a. Verfication of employment for more than 2 years with steady income that can cover your mortgage
b. Asset to cover your down payment + reserve for couple month of mortgage in your bank for more than 3 months in valid source. Yes they check the source. For this, you usually need $60k~70k minimum if you are buying a house in $400k~500k range.
c. Rule of thumb: Each $100k in mortgage equates to $500 per month. e.g. $300k home = $1,500k in mortgage before property tax and insurance

3. If you qualify #2 to buy a house, now you need to find a home. Foreclosures need better downpayments. Usually 20%. And even with regular homes, if you go under 20% with downpayments, you need to buy a personal mortgage insurance, which is about $150~200 a month.
4. And if you are buying a condo/townhouse, you need to add maintenance into your payment and your income must suffice that as well.
5. To see if you qualify for the loan, do this quickly.
Let's say you are buying a $300k home. After 20% down, you are loaning about $240k and this is roughly $1200 per month in mortgage.
Then assuming you are going with conventional 30yrs mortgage, they will count 45% of your gross income as "payable income". Let's say you are making $100k a year, then they see $3750 can be paid towards your mortgage before your debts. Then you have loans for BMW and school. Let's say you are paying $500 for your BMW and $500 for school, then you now have $2750 available for your mortgage.
This is all without your credit card bills, assuming you are debt free other than your BMW and school.
If you are making $75,000 a year, take 25% off from your $2750.
If your income prior year was lower, you average last two as your available income.

6. And of course, don't forget about your down payments again.

7. Before doing anything, get yourself pre-qualified from mortgage broker/lender and have the qualification letter.

Current cap for the conforming loan is set at $417k but fed is going to lower that in this spring so you would need to come up with larger down payments to avoid PMIs.

It's always good to research early and build your asset then waiting until you get enough money to buy a house.
I've started researching about buying a house 2 years ago when I basically had no money in bank and only had debt from the wedding, but after 2 years, we bought our dream house where we dreamed of.
My wife said I'm crazy, and told me to pay off the debts first. I looked real estate listing sites night over night searching through areas with their average listing price. I literally looked over ENTIRE listing in my county and county next to us. After that, I knew better than my real estate agent about pricing in different town so it was a breeze for me to block out my wanted area.
Then, I proceeded with saving money while looking at houses every weekend for year and a half. When I finally had 5% of down payment of my budget, then my wife finally realized that I was serious and we started to save more and looked for every opportunity. If you wait for it, it will come. Just be prepared so you don't miss it.

If your dream looks impossible, you should work yourself to where you thought it was impossible.

You can do it. Just read some books related to it rather than asking on the car forum if you are serious.