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The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them)

The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them)Author: Gary W. Eldred
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book

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Seller: motor_city_books
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 51 reviews
Sales Rank: 186401

Media: Paperback
Edition: 4
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9

ISBN: 0471751235
Dewey Decimal Number: 643.12
EAN: 9780471751236
ASIN: 0471751235

Publication Date: December 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

  • Kindle Edition - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them)
  • Digital - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them)
  • Digital - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them)
  • Paperback - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (And How to Avoid Them)
  • Paperback - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them), 2nd Edition
  • Paperback - The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them), 3rd Edition

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Everything first-timers need to know to avoid the most common mistakes homebuyers make

Written especially for first-timers, this eye-opening guide turns you into an educated consumer, ensuring that the home or condo you buy is both a comfortable place to live and a great investment for the future. Compiled from the experience of hundreds of homebuyers, real estate agents, home builders, and mortgage lenders, it shows you the most common mistakes buyers make and illustrates them in practice so you don't fall into the same traps.

Now revised and updated for today's hot real estate market, this invaluable resource covers everything from negotiating with sellers and making the down payment to shopping for the best mortgage and handling the closing. The new Fourth Edition also includes totally up-to-date guidance on using the Internet to find properties, secure financing, and collect important data. If you're thinking about buying a home in this overheated market, don't make these mistakes:
* Researching selling prices and still overpaying
* Believing everything your agent tells you
* Buying into an upscale neighborhood that's moving downscale
* Underestimating utilities and other costs
* Allowing your agent to negotiate for you
* Letting fear get the better of you and not buying at all


Written by one of the nation's leading real estate experts and packed with hundreds of valuable tips and suggestions, The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make, Fourth Edition will give you the confidence--and the wisdom--to buy the right home at the right price.



Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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5 out of 5 stars We're in the market to buy a house and found this book to offer EXCELLENT advice!   March 9, 2010
R. Neil Scott (Murfreesboro, TN USA)
This book and another I just read, "Homebuyers Beware: Who's Ripping You Off Now? - What You Must Know About the New Rules of Mortgage and Credit" are essential purchases for homebuyers. I love the layout of this one; it's in a question-and-answer format with questions that the author -- Gary Eldred -- has obviously dealt with over his twenty-plus year career.

Whether you're a buyer trying not to get fleeced, or a real estate broker trying to learn as much as you can to be successful and protect your client - this book is essential reading. Each bit of wisdom is presented in the form of a "mistake," with the important points to be conveyed offered as "good advice" or what he would advice to be done instead in the future.

What are some of the "mistakes"? Well, here's a sample: "No bank will give us a mortgage"; "We know exactly what we want"; "We bought becasue we were tired of looking"; "We liked the house on Elmwood, but our furniture wouldn't work there"; "We though we could make higher returns in the stock market"; "IBM never lays anyone off do they?"; "The appraiser didn't tell us that home prices were going to fall"; "We never saw the railroad tracks"; "The sellers named the price, we named the terms"; "When we bought our house, the land across the street was a cornfield." And -- so forth -- with 106 "mistakes" discussed in all.

All practical, good questions/issues with good thoughtful answers that just might save you a few thousand bucks!

R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University



4 out of 5 stars Great idea   February 25, 2010
Mac Convert (Colorado, USA)
I liked the layout of the book, you can open any page and start reading about various mistakes and how you can avoid them. There are categories, and related items are grouped together. I would highly recommend this book.


2 out of 5 stars Mistake 107: Relying on this book as your only guide to home buying.   February 22, 2010
John E. Cleek (Louisburg, KS USA)
I stopped counting about half way through but the author is right on! with at least 2/3 of his responses to common mistakes. He is a good writer and illustrates his writing with good real life examples. But his over-zealous belief that home buying is right for everyone regardless of personal and financial circumstances makes the book a dangerous one for wannabee home buyers to read if they fall into the category of prospective buyers who are not ready to buy a home.

What makes me particularly uncomfortable is that he says the greatest mistake of all is not buying a home. My experience tells me that the greatest mistake of all is buying a home when you are not ready to buy a home. Some people are not ready personally. They are not mature enough to put home ownership in perspective. Others are not ready to discipline themselves to the life-style constraints of home ownership. Still others have too much going on in their lives that produces stress to add the burden of buying a home (better to wait until some of the major stressors in their life are resolved). Finally, there are prospective buyers who simply are not financially ready to buy a home. Their FICO score is in the pits; they have no savings for down payment or closing; their income will not cover their current debts plus the payments on a mortgage; and the wise buyer's agent is obligated to tell them they should wait.

Given the experience of the past three years with millions of homeowners losing their home to foreclosure, I believe it is irresponsible to encourage buyers who are turned down for a loan to keep looking for someone who will finance them.
John Cleek, Ph.D., REALTOR®/Buyer's Agent and Author, Seven Steps to Home Ownership



4 out of 5 stars Very concise   December 2, 2009
Captain Jack Sparrow
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Very easy to use. The edition is a bit outdated and doesn't have insights from the more recent mortgage crisis. However, it is very easy to look at the contents in the front and zoom in to exactly what you are looking for.


1 out of 5 stars Seriously Out-of-date   July 23, 2008
M. Watkins (Boston, MA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

This is one of those people who should have to eat every copy of their book sold. Most of the first few reasons detail why buying is better than renting (not always true; us California renters are laughing now at the people who bought 2-3 years ago) and how you can finance a home with zero down and bad credit (and get the taxpayers to insure your bad debt.) The latest edition was published in 2006, at the very precipice of the housing price spiral we're all riding down, down, down with no bottom in sight. It's the irresponsibility of advisors like this that got us into this mess; do yourself -- and the economy -- a favor and skip this one.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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