In many markets right now is not the best time to be looking at house. Many houses go off the market around the holidays because people do not want the stress of having to show/keep clean their houses during this already crazy time. Plus if you live in cold weather areas, houses don't show as well with dormant lawns and bare trees. Also there tend to be less buyers as they don't want to go house hunting in the cold. You typically see a lot of houses get taken off the market at the end of Oct and go back up in March/April along with new houses to market. So if you aren't finding a lot in your area and are able to, I'd wait to the spring/summer to do your hunt.
You also want to make sure you are going into the process with a realistic idea of what your money will get you for your area. Your realtor should be able to help you with this. You may need to alter your wish list a bit or be willing to buy a house that may need some cosmetic upgrades down the road. We at first really wanted to get a house more toward the middle of our range as I wanted a bigger savings cushion. But our realtor told us to get everything we wanted on our list we'd need to be okay going to the top of our range or cut something out (for what we initially wanted to spend we could either get the two car garage or the master bath but not both).
But don't stress, you are just at the beginning and often this process can take some time, there are some people on the board that hunted for over a year before they found their perfect house. It all depends on your market.