Customer Reviews

Buy Your First Home!

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book just to get aquainted with the real estate business. This book lacks the detail that I was looking for, but for the person who is not big on reading, I would recommend this book. Also, the author reverts back to 'big cities' such as New York, New York, and New York... as you can see, this can get a bit annoying. He also has a hard time finding the sex of the people he speaks of; one moment the buyer is a female and in the next paragraph the buyer becomes a male. (It gets confusing trying to figure out who he is referring to when he says "she"). Hope this helps!!

We just recently bought our first house. I did use this book often to check out definition of terms, but it was just a bit to simplistic for me. Don't get me wrong- I had no experience in this area (I didn't even know what earnest money was), and I didn't even fully realize what the process was. Still, I found this book to just be a bit to basic. The basics are definitely necessary, but a bit more depth is definitely needed.

This book was straightforward, informative, and reassuring as it walks you through the big house-buying process. We found not only was it informative at first read, but useful as a reference as well. Also, it is quite thin (179 pages) so it was easy to read through quickly and learn what you want/need!

Highly recommend for newcomers to the house-buying market, especially if you find the whole process somewhat overwhelming. This will ease your mind and walk you through it all.

I started trying to figure all this out by reading a book of 100 questions and answers about home buying (by Glink). Boy was that confusing!

If you're a busy professional like me, you first need an executive summary and then you can go into the detailed analysis. This book is an executive summary. It gives you the whole picture first so you have a road map in front of you. You can read it in 2 casual sittings and at the end of it you are not overwhelmed by data. You get a holistic sense of what the process is about.

Now you can fill in the gaps by reading one of the longer books.

I bought this book along with "The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them)" (Gary W. Eldred, Ph.D.) and enjoyed both. Irwin's book neatly describes the complete homebuying process and is extremely easy to read. Included in the book are several checklists that I found useful, and discussions on financing options, home remodeling considerations, and tax impacts that owning a home will create. I read the book in a couple days' time and often referred back to it as I was going through the homebuying process; I'm sure you will, too.

I read few books when shopping for a new home and of all the books I read I found this one to be most useful. This books talks about everything that a 1st time home buyer needs to know. Maybe it could have been more detailed but when you are buying a home and you are a first time buyer, you are under lot of tension and you do not have time to go thru bulky home buying books. In fact I used to carry this book around as reference when I was shopping for a new home to lookup terms the agents/lender were talking about. I would recommend this book to any 1st time home buyer or atleast read this before jumping into more detailed books.

This book does a good job explaining the relationship between broker and client, property characteristics and some other subjects. However, the book does a poor job explaining the ins and outs of financing from the different programs to how exactly points with a mortgage broker work. I just recently purchased a house and this was to be my sole reference, however, I had to seek out answers on the Internet for most of my financing questions. Several times during this book the author explains that in order to have a more in depth explanation about a particular subject, you need to purchase his book on "negotiating", or "financing" . The book also was inaccurate and spoke negatively about government financing programs such as FHA/HUD loans and VA loans. I used VA financing for my purchase and the explanation and details in the book were inadequate. If you purchase this book, do not expect it to answer the majority of your questions.

The book is written very well its simple, I havent tested its usefulness because I havent baught a home as yet. However If you want to save money all this information is available on the web (ie. if you have the time to look around). Its Very very easy to read and understand and forewarns you about most mistakes you are likely to make.

I'm buying my first home, unfortunately in the ultra-expensive Bay Area. I read a few of the Dummies books, which were adequate, and then came across this book. Irwin's book is a fairly easy read - you can skim the parts you already know (i.e. if you're not buying a fixer-uper, skip that part), and concentrate on what you don't know. He doesn't go very far in depth into any one subject - the book is only 180 pages - but he gives a layman's explanation of almost every part of the home buying process, from offers, to financing, to inspections, to repairs. And I don't think you need anything more in depth than this to buy a home. I actually read this book half-way through my own home buying process, and I still found it very valuable and useful. I can't claim that it saved me any money - it didn't. But it did reassure me that what I was doing was right - and that is well worth the cost of the book.

I have never owned a home, but am ready to buy. I didn't even know where to start. Should I just call an agent? I decided to read up, first. This book walks you through the process of choosing a house (why NOT to buy a house on a corner), through how to get a mortgage (and what mortgage setup fees you shouldn't pay), how to get pre-approved and why this is important, why you should hire a Home Inspector, and how to close a deal. Full of inside tips that the novice would not know. I'm sure this book will save me thousands of dollars.