Real estate on my mind...

This looking for a house stuff is complicated, yo.

So far, we have:

1) Gotten pre-approved for a loan.
2) Stalked redfin.com and realtor.com for home listings.
3) Driven around every Sunday this year in search of open houses.
4) Talked to two different realtors - one that we were planning on using, and another we found and liked at an open house.

But here's where it gets all complicated. The realtor we met at the open house (Jess) was really cool. We gave her our email and what we're looking for, and she said she'd look into some listings for us. We talked to the realtor we were planning on using (Jeff), and though it was a brief conversation, he seemed into it, too. So we emailed him. And right after we emailed Jeff, we got an email from Jess with a nifty little list of places we might be into. Which is actually pretty on target for what we're looking for.

So - do we email Jess back? Do we wait to hear from Jeff to see if he comes up with a similar on-target list? Is it totally bad home-buying ju-ju to be talking to two realtors?

Jess seemed cool, but Jeff seems to really know the areas well, and he started as a contractor, which is nice, because he may be able to point out things that we overlook that might need work.

Ugh.

Also - to make matters MORE complicated, we thought we had narrowed down the area we liked to the Calabasas/Agoura area west of the Calabasas grade. We're over there EVERY. DAY. because the dog park we take Emma to (that has lights for wintertime) is on that side of the grade, and the drive over there every day has gotten a bit tedious.

But then yesterday we were driving around, and we stumbled upon an open house on this quiet little street in the Canoga Park/West Hills area. It was super cute and spacious, and had just the right combination of stuff to fix up/personalize and stuff that was fine the way it was. It had hardwood floors throughout, three bedrooms plus a den, a front yard, a nice kitchen, a back yard with a pool, and a HUGE garage plus tons of additional parking. Plus, it had character - it wasn't a cookie cutter house. Other than the fact that it was more space then we need, a short sale, and had a pool (yes, this is kind of a drawback for us), it was pretty close to perfect.

And so now I have NO idea what I want.

A house(!) with a garage and a yard and some space in an area we don't like quite as much? A condo or townhouse with an HOA in an area we really like and that's conducive to our day-to-day? What to do???

Add all that to the fact that Sean's not going to have a regular paycheck for a while, and it's nearly enough to make a person crazy! In fact, last night I had a weird ass dream about trying to "break up" with a realtor (a mysterious one, not one we're actually talking to) and finding the perfect house.

Any advice out there for us? (Kareena - I love your posts on first time home buying, thanks for those!) Any help is welcome!