Good point, when the right house comes along, it'll scream your name. This is a major investment, and not something you want to rush into.
What we ended up doing is building a home in a new development. That way we got everything we wanted, exactly the way we wanted it, and had a lot of say in the layout and format of the house. Its our dreamhouse, and the area around us is booming. Since we bought the house 5 months ago, the price has already gone up $10,000. And its still going up, with bigger houses and more neighborhoods popping up.