Property Book Shop - Tips & Traps When Mortgage Hunting, 3/e (Tips and Traps)

List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $2.88
Your Save: $ 14.07 ( 83% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill

Average Customer Rating:

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.722
EAN: 9780071448925
ISBN: 0071448926
Label: McGraw-Hill
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2005-05-18
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Studio: McGraw-Hill

Related Items
Tips and Traps When Buying a Home Tips & Traps When Negotiating Real Estate (Tips & Traps) Home Closing Checklist Tips and Traps When Buying a Condo, co-op, or Townhouse (Tips & Traps) The 106 Mortgage Secrets All Homebuyers Must Learn--But Lenders Don't Tell

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Contains Incorrect Information
Comment: I've enjoyed Robert Irwin's books on home buying. He's a real estate agent and has good info to offer on that topic. However, in this book he delves into mortgages. And as most real estate agents do when discussing an industry in which they have not worked, he makes mistakes.

This book contains incorrect information about loans. For example, there is incorrect/inaccurate information about locking the interest rate right in the beginning.

If you want a GOOD book on mortgages written by an industry insider, get Mortgage Ripoffs and Money Savers: An Industry Insider Explains How to Save Thousands on Your Mortgage or Re-Fi. Take a look at the reader feedback; it speaks for itself.

Customer Rating:

Summary: good author
Comment: I found Irwin's Tips & Traps When Buying a Home useful when I bought my first house. I expect this to be useful also.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Good book for those who want to understand mortgages and r/e
Comment: First off, if you just want to buy a house and not deal with much, find a good broker (of course, that assumes you can find a good broker) and set them loose with specific requirements.

This book is more worthy of people who want to learn more about mortgages and save themselves anywhere from 1000 to 5,000 dollars on average. More if you really dig but this isn't the book for big saves in real estate.

Irwin will take you through all the various steps in

(1) figuring out your credit rating and what you can and cannot get with it;

(2) different types of mortgages and which ones to use;

(3) how to figure out your payment schedule; how to not get in over your head;

(4) the little costs for escrow and banks and other costs; some of which you can have removed;

(5) dealing w/ a broker;

(6) various loans to seek out, including govt ones;

(7) dealing with the seller; and

(8) how to make sure you don't get ripped off.

Overall, this is a great book for the first time investor or someone who wants a home and wants to save a few thousand dollars (or more). Not worth your time, as it's too complicated, for those who want to spend little time learning about it.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A must have!
Comment: The most complete book I've ever seen on hunting for a mortgage. It explained in detail all my options. It even gave me a list of different types of mortgages that I could get and where I could get them. I found it invaluable in getting a lower than market interest rate mortgage from a mortgage broker. (Who cares if he was previously a real estate agent or not-see earlier reviews!)

Customer Rating:

Summary: HELP
Comment: My husband and I are shopping around for our home we plan to purchase. My husband is a school teacher and I brought home this book, thinking he could read through it and get a real handle on what we should be doing for a mortgage when we find our home. He found the book very complicated and he said it was overwhelming. I paged through the book, just reading the tips, which I found helpful, but I, too, felt the book was very heavy on facts and information which probably doesn't pertain to the average homebuyer - certainly not us.

We were pre-approved for a loan before we started looking for our home by a very helpful mortgage broker referred to us by our Realtor. He has answered all the questions we had to date very professionally. I showed him the book and he said he had read it and he thought there were some helpful hints in it but he said there were some very glaring errors in it, too. Like one of the other revieweres pointed out, the author makes a monster mistake when he states that most all mortgage brokers are real estate agents. That's not at all true. They are required to have a current Department of Real Estate license (mortgage brokers) but they are not automatically real estate agents unless the author meant that they are QUALIFIED to sell real estate. The vast majority of them do not sell any real estate. They make loans on the real estate sold by real estate agents. It sounds confusing but it isn't. The author needs to correct this. He also needs to scale down the contents of his book so that the average borrower can understand it better.

He should also spend a lot more time denouncing many, if not all, of the lenders who advertise on the highways and freeways with their big electronic billboards advertising interest rates that absolutely do not exist. He should devote an entire chapter to this unethical practice which continues. unabated, as I write this review.

I called one of those lenders this afternoon because they offered a rate which was better than my mortgage broker offered. I found out that what they advertised wasn't even close to what they were quoting. The agent there told me the billboards were malfunctioning. I suggested they turn them off, then. His comment was, "we spend too much money on them to turn them off." Robert Irwin, get on this scam now. Do a whole book on it.

More Reviews

Editorial Reviews:

WITH HUNDREDS OF MORTGAGES NOW AVAILABLE, HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE ONE THAT'S RIGHT FOR YOU?

Congratulations! Chances are you're buying a new home or refinancing an old one and are now in the process of applying for a mortgage loan. Before making any decisions that could affect the next 30 years of your life, arm yourself with this edition of Tips & Traps When Mortgage Hunting.

There are so many loans now available for practically every situation. America's leading real estate authority, Robert Irwin, will help you cut through the confusion and find the mortgage that fits your needs and is right for your budget. If one of your biggest concerns is paying too high an interest rate, or shelling out excessive cash for closing costs, this book will save you money by showing you how to find the lowest rates available. In easy-to-understand language, Irwin explains...

When to use a mortgage broker and how to find the right one
How to use the latest technology to conduct a mortgage search online
How to shop for and lock in the lowest interest rate
How to avoid being denied a mortgage because of a credit problem

This clear and comprehensive guide will provide you with the most up-to-date information and insider tips to help you avoid the traps of mortgage hunting and find the right mortgage at the right,/p>