I would like to have some tips and ideas of how a home buyer could secure the best loan and best house in this uncertain times like the subprime crisis.

The best loan offers are from banks.One must take advantage of the offers because you not only get ownership but also one is able to save on income tax.

What exactly is "subprime?" I am not familiar with this term. I know there is a crisis about it going on right now, but I know very little about it. If my husband and I are going to buy a house, is this a bad time? I would also be interested in some tips and tricks if one needs to know them right now.

Prime means good, premier customers.  So subprime simply means lousy customers (usually with bad credt).  Banks and loan providers has lend out billions of $ at high interest rate (of course) to these borrowers who subsequently default - so the subrpime crisis is born.

Hope this helps. :)

The subprime crisis is quite rare in case of housing loans,unless the financial institute has been careless.These kind of cases are mostly in industrial loans or subsidized loans,by the government.

That's precisely the point - lending institution in the chase for higher yield threw caution to the winds.  Worse, nvestment firms packages these debts into a exotic instrument called CDOs (collateral debt obligations) and sold them to banks and these banks with huge CDo exposure later go bust when borrowers defaulted.