Guide books on buying a home
27 December 2007Instead of wasting my money on rent, I’m thinking of buying a house as an investment. I’ve been spending some time over the web going through introductory articles on home buying and so far I’ve been disappointed. I found that most of the stuff over the web is not very helpful. While they give a good overview of possible options, they are very short on giving practical guidelines to aid decision making.
For example, here are some of the typical questions that I have:
- What are the key variables (or rules) to decide between buying a single family home, townhouse, or a condo?
- How to go about ranking different lenders and choosing the *best* offer from among different lenders?
- What part of mortgage and other related fees are negotiable and how much can you negotiate?
- How to chose a real-estate agent?
- How to evaluate the quality and selling price for a property
- I know some sidings are good and some are bad, I am not sure about other things such as furnace, carpets, etc.
I am hoping that one of the following books will be helpful in answering my questions.
- 10 Steps to Home Ownership: A Workbook for First-Time Buyers by Ilyce R. Glink
- The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them) by Gary W. Eldred
- How To Buy Your First Home, Second Edition by Diana Summers
- Home Buying For Dummies, 3rd edition by Eric Tyson and Ray Brown
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying and Selling a Home, 5th Edition (Complete Idiot’s Guide to) by Shelley O’Hara and Nancy D. Lewis
- Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home (book with CD-Rom & Audio) by Ilona Bray, Alayna Schroeder, and Marcia Stewart
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One Response to “Guide books on buying a home”
December 31st, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Congratulations on your new job and move, Kumara. You’re right, there isn’t much good research on the internet for the first time home buyer. We looked mostly at the Remax website which had some good basic articles.
The top-most criteria I think should be the location - neighborhood, businesses, amenities, attractions etc. If you pick that first, it’d save a tremendous amount of time and effort and perhaps help you narrow down on other options. For deciding between singleFamily vs condo units - I think the decision is quite subjective. You have to consider factors like whether you like mowing the lawn on a lazy summer afternoon, or relaxing on the roof-top community sun-deck and pool. How much time you want to spend on a do-it-yourself project for the house vs how much do you like other people making certain common decisions which impact you but which you may not necessarily need/ want - like an elevator beautification project that costs all condo owners a little fortune! Also, a high-rise condo with 250-300 units and facilities like pool/ gym/ on-site cleaners etc. tends to be run like a local govt. itself, while the distinction blurs a bit when you look at 10-unit buildings which have the bare minimum interaction as far as common elements go. Financially, you would like to consider the fact that you have several bills to take care of, beyond your loan interest+principal payments.
Look at APR rankings on bankrate.com. If you are putting up a traditional down payment, ING Direct typically is a top choice. Our experience was very good and the way they handle the process is more suited for us pro-internet generation.
We interviewed two RealEstate agents before making the decision. For us, being comfortable (and friendly) with the agent was more important because given all the other factors, pressure from our own agent was the last thing we wanted to have.
Good luck and wishes for the new year!