Home buying for dummies
March 1, 2017 1:18 PM   Subscribe

We are thinking of buying our first house this summer. Assume we know next to nothing about the process. What website or book would you recommend? I see that there is literally a “Home Buying for Dummies” book that gets decent reviews. I figured I’d ask here about resources before buying it.

We are in our early 40s. We are not looking at this as an investment, but we've moved to an area where renters tend to be students or retirees, so good mid-range apartments are hard to find. We have a decent down payment, but we'd like to keep things modest as we don't want to still be paying a mortgage when we're looking to retire in 30 years or so.
posted by Kriesa to Home & Garden (6 answers total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: If you want, memail me your address and I'll send you my copy of Homebuying for Dummies I purchased last year. It really came in handy, especially when thinking of questions to ask the realtor and figuring out the differences in financing and how to handle an inspection.

Other options include checking the library for resources - but be sure to check the edition and date. I took out two books from the library - one pre-2007 and one post-2007, and the differences were laughable.

Also, check out first time homebuyers classes in your area. I ended up doing some at the very end of the homebuying process to qualify for a grant, but there was a lot of information that would have been helpful at the very beginning.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:26 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I asked this question a while back and marked a number of them that I bought as "Best Answer".

As we recently just closed on our first house (!) and are in the process of packing up and getting rid of things, I just put almost all of those books in the "Donate" box but wanted to keep one (if for no other reason to be able to gift to the next friend or family member that wants to buy a home) and that was You're Not Buying That House, Are You? by Frank Cook. Concise, to the point, plain-spoken (i.e. minimal industry jargon), and not filled with a bunch of fluff that I--as the average first-time homebuyer--didn't need to know. Very much recommend.

Also, throughout this whole process, I found the r/realestate subreddit to be very helpful. If you have a question, it's probably already been asked (so many times I needed a sanity check, and was able to find it there) The FAQ sidebar is a great place to start.
posted by lovableiago at 1:28 PM on March 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


Regulations depend on your location - we used 'How to buy a House in California', published by Nolo, AFAIK. YMMV. Seconding 'House Buying for Dummies'.
posted by The Toad at 1:32 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also, if you are a data person, you may also love Redfin's data analytics as much as I do. It can get pretty specific and tell you about trends in your area versus other areas you may be looking. You can even download the data and just play with it on your own.

Redfin is a little more accurate than other online realty sites, but of course there are differences in housing price that aren't always covered by square footage and number of bed/baths.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:39 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


While not specific to the financial aspect of home buying, I'd highly recommend at least reading The Virgin Homeowner. Lots of good info in there about maintenance in the home to get a feel for what it is.
posted by lpcxa0 at 2:41 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


In addition to websites or books, I'd recommend googling around for "[Name of your city] + first time homebuyer classes." My husband and I took one, and even though it was specifically targeted towards buyers who had lower incomes than ours (and therefore qualified for certain types of grants we were unable to receive), I still found it exceptionally useful for understanding the process leading up to closing.
posted by mostly vowels at 6:46 PM on March 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


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