Buying a home while renting with a lease

DH and I want to buy a house when our lease is up which is the end of next April. I have been looking at lisings online for a while now and we have a feel for what we are looking for and where. We had looked at a couple of houses last year.
My question is, when should we start seriously looking at houses?
There is an open house that we would like to look at but what happens if we start looking at homes and going to Open houses and we find a home that we really like? It's too early.

Does anybody have any advice for us?

from my experience...looking for a house could be either very easy or very hard. DW and I already looked at least 20 homes in a 4 month span. other on LIW found the there home with the first house

i would find out your options first of breaking the lease if you happen to find your dream home at ealier then your lease ends.

do you have any friends willing to take over your apt?

those are just a couple of options. if you are to wait closer to lease ending, i would start seriously looking towards the end of summer. as the whole house mortage process can take 3-4 months.


i hope this helps