Synopses & Reviews
Buying a home is one of lifes biggest decisions. Whether you're a first-timer or a veteran, youll find heaps of helpful information and advice in House Hunting, the ultimate interactive guide to buying a home. From deciding what type of house you want and need and finding the right agent to comparing loans and making an offer, House Hunting walks you through all the steps and helps you ask all the right questions along the way.
Review
Experienced real estate writer and 25-year realty broker Dian Hymer has written a House Hunting workbook that should be required reading for serious home buyers. It is an extremely practical sourcebook to gather just about everything needed during the home quest.
Hymer, whose Starting Out column appears in this and other newspapers nationwide, has created an unusual carry-along book for buyers. Each chapter is marked with tabs for easy reference. It is also a workbook designed with fill-in-the-blank checklists and questions buyers should ask.
Each chapter contains Hymer's sage advice, gained from many years of successful sales experience helping buyers and sellers.
This is a book to be scanned first, then read and lastly used by filling in the blanks at each step in the home-buying procedure.
The color photos remind readers that their goal is to find a home to meet their needs. Each chapter contains pockets to store papers, such as your mortgage lender's pre-approval letter or certificate, brochures of homes you visit, copies of purchase papers you sign or review, inspection reports and seller disclosure forms, and closing papers. If the book has a flaw, it could have been larger to store the many papers acquired during a typical home search.
The book's appendix is especially valuable. It includes an interest rate chart to calculate your monthly mortgage payment, based on the interest rate and loan term. There is also a concise chart of typical purchase contract time contingencies, such as for obtaining mortgage final approval, professional inspection and pest confessional inspection and pest control inspecti8on, and when each contingency is appropriate.
The summary of possible closing costs explains who usually pays for what and how much is a reasonable price.
Also included are a typical residence purchase contract (although these vary by state), a transfer disclosure statement to be filled out by the seller, a uniform mortgage application and a HUD closing settlement statement.
The chapter on negotiation is especially strong and practical. It explains strategy and how to handle counteroffers and provides an analysis of the situation for buyers whose offer wasn't accepted by the seller.
There is even a chapter for sellers who are selling one home so they can buy another. Hymer answers the question Should you buy or sell first? by including a checklist of pros and cons for each alternative. Her checklist of how to interview a listing agent, with key questions to ask, is very thorough. The chapter even includes checklists about fixing up a home for sale and pricing it correctly.
This how to buy a home book is one of the few that cannot be recommended too highly. Buyers should carry it with them every time they inspect a candidate for home purchase. -Los Angeles Times
About the Author
Dian Hymer has been a top-producing and award-winning real estate agent in the San Francisco Bay Area for 25 years. Her nationally syndicated column, "Starting Out," appears regularly in more than 20 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, and San Francisco Chronicle. Her book Starting Out: The Complete Home Buyer's Guide is published by Chronicle Books.