Review of 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask: With Answers from Top Brokers from Around the Country (Paperback)

I happily endorse this book.The new second edition contains many new questions from the first edition, revised many other questions, and completely rewrites every answer.Things are changing fast in residential real estate, and this book will bring you up-to-date.Whether you are a first-time buyer, first-time seller, or haven't bought a home in at least five years, this book will serve your needs very well.The questions are drawn from those that brokers report that first-time buyers most often ask.The answers draw upon the experiences of many brokers.

How much training does it take to become a librarian, teacher, lawyer, physician, or rocket scientist?How well would the world work for us if such training were skimped on?

When it comes to buying a first home (whether condo, co-op, or fixer-upper), most people act as though you can do brain surgery without the training.Not!

Even if you view this emotionally and financially important investment as one to be approached carefully, most first-time buyers will make important errors.Here are a few of my favorites:

(1) Not thinking about how hard it may be to resell the home.

(2) Vastly underestimating how much money will be needed to fix it up.

(3) Overpaying for the home because of not realizing how to negotiate.

(4) Waiting until finding one's soul mate before purchasing.

(5) Spending more than you can afford, and using boxes for furniture.

(6) Purchasing a home that doesn't fit your needs (where will you put 4 children and you in 2 bedrooms?).

(7) Taking on a horrible commute.

Interest rates are down in light of the terrible terrorist tragedy and weak economy.Unemployment is rising.Based on historical patterns, this is a good time to buy.Are you ready?Probably not, even if you think you are.

But I have good news for you.If you read and apply the lessons of this book, you will be more ready than many people who have already bought homes.

The subjects covered include deciding what you needs are, versus your likes; how to look; determining what you can afford; deciding what broker to use; how to work with the broker (especially what not to tell the broker, since most work for the seller); how to decide what to offer; how to negotiate; getting the best financing; checking out the house; handling the closing; and even dealing with problems after the closing.You also get help with which professionals (such as buying agents, lawyers, and home inspectors) to use, how to select them, what they will cost, and how to work with them.

I have bought or helped buy three houses, am an attorney, and am a licensed real estate agent.I found several areas where this excellent book extended my knowledge.I know it will save you thousands of dollars . . . and probably even more in avoided emotional trauma!

The book does this by posing questions, providing worksheets, steering you to Internet resources, and describing case histories.

No book from the buyer's perspective can however hope to dispel the incredible naiveté that we all have when we first purchase a home (all 2 million a year who are like lambs being led to the slaughter).For that purpose, I suggest that you also read another book, How to Sell Your Home Fast, which is an excellent description of what intelligent, prepared sellers will be doing to get you to buy their home and pay too much.Beneath all the friendly chit-chat with the sellers, realize that your are usually being carefully maneuvered to act against your own interest.

By the way, this book does not do enough to warn you about hidden house faults.Home inspectors are not the entire answer.They usually get their referrals from brokers, and will usually not tell you the worst of what can happen lest brokers stop recommending them.Spend some extra money and have people you know well and trust who are expert in electrical, heating, air conditioning, structural, roofing, plumbing, soil, and environmental hazards take a look also.They will find things that you can use to get the price lowered to cover the cost of repairs.My experience is that you will save about [amt.] for every [amt.] you spend in this way.

I also recommend that you find 10 people who are a lot like you who purchased a home similar to what interests you about five years ago.Ask them what they did right and what didn't work out so well.

After you explore all of these choices, you may want to consider what I did once . . . rent with an option to purchase.All of my rent went towards the down payment.I found I loved the house, saved money, and had few problems with repairs.I later sold it for a nice profit.

Also, spend time in the yard of your potential new home at all hours of the day and night.You may be surprised by some of the positive and negative features.In one home, I discovered that a dozen deer came by across a creek at 7:30 a.m.Seeing them every morning became my favorite part of every day.

After preparing by knowing what the right questions are, look for all of the potential problems and opportunities in making large decisions.Then sleep on your decision for three nights.You'll know what to do then!

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Review of When Someone You Love Needs Nursing Home, Assisted Living, or In-Home Care: The Complete Guide (Paperback)

This handbook is a valuable resource for anyone faced with the daunting task of choosing care for an elderly family member. The vast majority of readers most likely have found themselves thrust into an emergency situation with a loved one who needs immediate care. Navigating the uncharted waters of eldercare options can quickly become overwhelming and stressful.

This guide will help readers decide which kind of care is most appropriate with practical information about nursing homes, assisted living arrangements, and in-home care options. As an eldercare executive, I have seen a rapid increase in the number of people searching for care for their loved ones. This guide will help them dispel common myths about long-term care, find the answers to commonly asked questions and explore financial issues.





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Review of Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front (Paperback)

The secondary title of this book--One Woman's Solutions to Finding Abundance for Your Family while Coming to Terms with Peak Oil, Climate Change and Hard Times--pretty much tells the story.

This is not just another of those doom-and-gloom, batten-down-the-hatches-and-man-the-lifeboat handbooks we have seen so many of in the past few years. I've read most of those other books, and while they are helpful in understanding why we are where we are (in terms of energy depletion, climate change, and overwhelming personal and national debt), they don't go very far toward helping us deal with the problems we are facing.

Depletion and Abundance is different. For one thing, it is written by a woman--a smart, well-informed, and energetic woman. She is also a mother of four small children who manages to grow a garden, put food in the freezer, home school the kids, and write about it. These are not small matters, for all of the other books that have been written about energy, environmental, and economic woes have been written by men, bless 'em. These writers understand conceptually what we are facing and tell us with great authority and occasional sympathy just how bad it's likely to be. But Sharon Astyk is different. She speaks with authority and sympathy, but she focuses on how we can manage when tough times come. She writes with cheerfulness, humor, and great personal commitment. I'm betting that, if anybody can show us the way forward, she can.

For another thing, Depletion and Abundance is a book about the "new home front"--and if you ask me, this is where our real battles will be fought: not in Washington or in some foreign country, and not with guns (we hope). We will be trying to make our lives better at home. We will be working with a toolkit that women will need to know how to acquire and use: food from the garden, low-energy appliances, and care and attention to the wise conservation and deployment of the family's resources of time, effort, and money, in and out of the "official economy." Peak oil and gas, the use of coal and nuclear and renewable resources--these are public issues and must of course be addressed by national and local governments. But as Astyk points out repeatedly, it all comes home in the end. Home is where we will find sufficiency or scarcity, and it is women who will man the home front. This is a new message, an important message. We need to listen up.

Depletion and Abundance is full of important and helpful ideas. Astyk suggests ways we can reduce our consumption, get out of debt, and learn how to use what we have--use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without: the real homeland security, as she sees it. She has learned to live on seasonal produce and local foods. She and her family have faced the frightening fact that our futures may not be fully or continuously electrified (as I write this, Hurricane Ike has imposed this knowledge on some four million reluctant learners). Astyk has learned how to cope and she tells us how. Indeed, she is never stingy with her ideas. There's a 14-page appendix full of good suggestions for turning less into more, and more, and more.

And that, at least for me, is what is most important about this book. Yes, we're facing an unpredictable future where there will be less of everything. But the human spirit, as Astyk shows us, is capable of a marvelous alchemy. We can turn tough times into a test, and pass it. We can become self-sufficient, and in the process, learn how to recognize true abundance when we see it. Hers is an optimistic vision, to be sure--overly optimistic, in some ways. But we need optimism now, don't we? And if we need it now, we'll need it even more next week or next year or the years after that, in what may be a future most of us don't want to think about.

Read Depletion and Abundance and see if it doesn't change your ideas about what's ahead. It just might change your life, too.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Product Description

Why are so few peak oil authors women? There's been much debate about this, and no one has yet arrived at a definitive answer. But whatever the reason, Sharon Astyk has established herself as a true rarity within the peak oil community by virtue of being a woman who has chosen to write about peak oil. The perspective she offers is thus both uncommon and vital.
In Depletion and Abundance, she shows how rewarding life on her New Home Front could be, immeasureably improving our health, nutrition, sense of community and overall well-being. Chief among its benefits would be all the extra time that we'd have. She points out that people in medieval times worked far fewer hours than Americans do today, and that most people in modern-day peasant societies also work less hard than we do.
This, along with Astyk's unique perspective as a woman, a mother and a peak oil activist, makes Depleiton and Abundance well worth a read. The ring of authenticity to her writing will hook you - while its relaxed style, ineffable humor, personal anecdotes and comforting touch will soothe your melancholy peaknik soul like a warm hand on the shoulder.
Reviewed by Frank Kaminski, Energy Bulletin

Sharon's introduction is pricelss in its succinct, dead-on analysis of collapse, and is reason enough to buy and send this book to everyone you know who is partially or completely clueless about where we're headed. "When I realized that everything was going to change, I was at first afraid. Because I thought, if my government or public policy or other choices weren't going to fix everything, what could I possibly do? What hope was there, if I had to take care of myself, if my community had to take care of itself?
But when I began looking for solutions that could be applied on the level of ordinary human lives, that involved changes in perspectives and pulling together, the reclamation of abandoned ideas and the restoration of strong communitites, I began to feel hopeful, even excited. Because I realized that when large institutions cease to be powerful, sometimes that means that people start being powerful again."
Depletion and Abundance is not a feel-good book, but it is intensely human, compassionate, supportive, pracitcal, alarming, enlivening, and astonishingly accurate.
Reviewed by Carolyn Baker, Carolynbaker.net

OK, quick check: everyone who is concerned about the economic crisis turning into a depression and causing food and fuel prices to rise and pockets to empty - whether for yourself, your parents, your children, your neighbors, your friends, or anyone - raise your hand. That covers just about everyone, doesn't it? Almost every conversation I've had recently with different people lately has touched on the economy and people's fears about what this situation means. Astyk knows she's covering a lot of territory to bring many people up to speed on the various causes behind our current crisis. Her research and thoughtful insight in discussing peak oil, climate change, and the economy are on target too.We may be headed into difficult times - and heaven knows, if you read only Astyk's first chapter, you might find yourself too depressed to go on --but ultimately we still retain the ability to choose a certain aount of independence. We can invest our time and our work in the sustenance of our selves, our families, and our communities, and we can begin to build a more sustainable economy. Sharon Astyk's book gives us the hope and the inspiration needed to take that step.Reviewed by Jennifer M, The Ethicurean

Climate change, peak oil, and economic instability aren't just future social problems-they jeopardize our homes and families right now. Our once-abundant food supply is being threatened by toxic chemical agriculture, rising food prices, and crop shortages brought on by climate change. Funding for education and health care is strained to the limit, and safe and affordable housing is disappearing.

Depletion and Abundance explains how we are living beyond our means with or without a peak oil/climate change crisis, and that, either way, we must learn to place our families and local communities at the center of our thinking once again. The author presents strategies to create stronger homes, better health, and a richer family life and to:

• live comfortably with an uncertain energy supply
• prepare children for a hotter, lower energy, less secure world
• survive and thrive in an economy in crisis
• maintain a kitchen garden to supply basic food needs

Most importantly, readers will discover that depletion can lead to abundance, and the anxiety of these uncertain times can be turned into a gift of hope and action.

An unusual family perspective on the topic, this book will appeal to all those interested in securing a future for their children and grandchildren.

Sharon Astyk is a former academic who farms in upstate New York with her husband and four children. She also raises livestock, grows vegetables, and writes about food and peak oil. (Check out her blog-www.sharonastyk.com.)

About the Author
Sharon Astyk is a former academic who is a writer, subsistence farmer, parent, activist and prolific blogger (www.sharonastyk.com and http://henandharvest.com/). She farms in upstate New York with her husband and four children, raises livestock, and grows and preserves vegetables.She is the author of Depletion and Abundance, and co-author of A Nation of Farmers.

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