By LEAH WEATHERSBY

So you've found true love. What's the next logical step? Marriage? Kids? Real estate? The truth is, nothing says "forever," or at least "for the next five to seven years," like purchasing a home together.

But the journey from that first call to a real estate agent to moving day can be fraught with difficulty and conflict, as many a North Seattle Realtor will attest.

"In purchasing a home, you really find out the dynamics of a couple," said George Hoder, a sales manager with Excel Properties in Green Lake. He quotes one former female client as saying to her mate, "you want me, we get this house."

To keep it from getting down to ultimatums, couples should make sure their priorities are in sync from the start.

Jim Stacey, a real estate consultant based on Phinney Ridge, said couples should split up in separate rooms and write down the top 10 things they each want in a house, circling the top three.

"Then," Stacey said, "meet in the kitchen and see if this marriage will work."

What happens when couples don't communicate ahead of time?

"I've seen one really ugly fight when the garage had been updated and the kitchen needed updating and she thought that was a reason to kill the deal," Stacey said. "I almost got in a cab and left them."

In another, more potentially disastrous, situation, Gordon Stephenson, a real estate broker with Real Property Associates in Maple Leaf, tells of a man who moved to Seattle from New York ahead of his wife to hunt for a house. He ended up buying a Cedar Park home with a great view for about $500,000. When the wife finally arrived she didn't like it at all - she'd been hoping to live closer to downtown. The couple had to turn around and immediately sell the house.

The moral of the story, said Stephenson, is don't invest in an area you don't know.

"Before you make a big commitment like buying, spend three to six months renting," Stephenson said. He added that double moves are far less expensive than a bad purchase.

If all this makes you wonder if it's better to rent a love nest than purchase one, Hoder said owning a house can also further a relationship. He told the story of a couple that had been trying to have kids for about six years before buying their first home. As soon as they closed the deal, they got pregnant. Hoder thinks that subliminally, home ownership can send the right message.

"Now we have the house, now we can have the family," he said.