Review of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying and Selling a Home, 5th Edition (Paperback)

I got this book because my wife and I are getting ready to buy our first home and I wanted a book to guide me, and thus prevent me from making any major mistakes and to ensure I knew what was going on each step of the way.I read the entire section on buying a house (5/6 of the book) and even half of the section on selling a house just to see the other side of things (the remaining 1/6 of the book).I personally found the book gave just enough details to be frustrating.

The book will go over all the available options, but won't explore them in depth enough to help you make the right decision.For example, the book will tell you to contact multiple lenders and evaluate all the costs involved (the loan fees and if there are pre-pay penalties, not just the interest rate), but won't tell you how to really decide which loan to pick.The book will tell you that you can negotiate for some of the fees you have to pay with a mortgage to be waived by the lender or for some of the fees to be paid by the seller, but won't tell you how to spot these fees from the true, non-negotiable fees.There's a discussion of choosing the different types of homes (e.g. condo, townhouse or traditional home), but no discussion of the economic advantages of one over the other.I've heard townhouses appreciate faster, but I don't know if this is just an old-wives tale of if there is some truth to it.I still don't.Furthermore, the authors do nothing to predict future market trends, which is partly understandable since this is so difficult, but they don't even take a stab at it and the book is very current (2006).

Basically, the authors do a great job reviewing all of your options, but they don't advise you about what the *best* option would be for you.Maybe that is impossible because everyone's situation is totally different, but I'd like to see some situation specific direct advice, even if it resulted in some of the book being useless to me because it wasn't detailing my situation. Everyone's situation may be different but there aren't THAT many different situations (just starting out/family in apt moving to first house/family upgrading house/family downsizing house at retirement or because of unfortunate financial circumstances - that covers 95% of people).This would take more pages but there are pages to spare and that's my biggest gripe.

The book is organized by the steps in home buying (i.e. looking for a home/making an offer/obtaining financing/closing) but if you actually sit down and read it straight through like I did, you'll end up reading the same things over and over again.This makes the book better if you just want to read the chapter you're interested in because the chapters stand up on their own, but make it more frustrating if you read it front to back (you'll constantly be saying "yeah, I know, you told me that already, almost verbatim").Not rehashing things would also free up pages to explore the nitty gritty in greater detail.I even found situations where full page tables were in the book twice in two seperate chapters! Completely unchanged, just printed twice when the authors were once again rehashing things they'd already covered!

In conclusion, I would have rather had concrete advice rather then the overview given here (although I think a better edited book could have had both in the same amount of space).The only other book I read that was even close to this was Suze Orman for the Young, Fabulous and Broke.That book gave very concrete advice and told you exactly what was the best things you could be doing and gave you a priority order to do them (401K then credit card debt then house down payment then Roth IRA).No concrete advice here.The book often passes off giving advice with the disclaimer "talk to your agent."That's good advice, but then why'd I get this book in the first place?Furthermore, I think to give concrete advice you have to really know your topic and I'm not sure the author's understand housing the way Orman understands personal finance.

I've been harsh so far, because that's what stands out to me, but I should say this book isn't a total waste of time, and this review has disproportinately focussed on the negatives.Bottom line, I just don't think there's much info here that you can't get for free somewhere else, like Yahoo Real Estate guides.In addition, online you can plug all your own numbers (like salary and debt burden) right into the online calculators (to tell you the maximum mortgage payment you can afford).So unless you really want the info packaged in book form I wouldn't buy this.

Other minor nit-picks:

1. The first part of the book is useless fluff.It covers stuff like "do you want 3 bedrooms or more" and "do you want a fireplace."I suppose it should be expected, but for me it wasn't necessary.That parts easy.Tell me how to get the best mortgage!Tell me how to get the best price!

2. All of the examples are from Indiana which is where the authors must be from.The authors would often say things like "this is how it's done in Indiana but it might be different in your state so you should check."I brought the book for you to tell me!They should include an appendix for these things telling you how it is for all 50 states instead of saying the sames things 3 times to get the page count up.Furthermore whenever they get into these issues (usually legal issues, such as how much information the seller is required to disclose to potential buyers) they don't even tell you how to find out if you were sufficiently motivated to investigate the matter yourself.

Product Description
The top-selling, most complete buyer's and seller's guide available.

The top-selling book on the subject, this latest edition of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying and Selling a Home focuses on everything to do with the sale and purchase of a house. With updated information on finding good schools and neighborhoods, expanded coverage on home auction sales, and the changing options buyers and sellers have with brokers, this is the best home buyer's and seller's guide on the market.

About the Author
Shelley O'Hara has written more than 30 books. She works closely with real estate agents and specialists in the real estate market.
Nancy D. Lewis is a freelance editor and author of numerous books on lifestyles topics. She is also a multiple home buyer and seller.

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