Essential Guide for Firsttime Homeowners: Maximize Your Investment & Enjoy Your New Home

This is a great book for anyone buying a house for the first time, whether you've already signed the mortgage or have just started looking. Some of the advice is common sense, but a lot of the details are things you might not even think of if you've never owned a house before. It covers a wide range of essential subjects, such as who to inform of your new address, how to prioritize and balance your finances in the beginning, how your taxes will change, what kind of routine maintenance needs to be done on a house, how to handle disputes with neighbors. It lends advice on property values, homeowner's insurance, and going "green". It also contains suggestions for things down the road, like refinancing, remodeling, and moving on to your second home. I found it invaluable, since we moved into our first home about a month ago. I thought I knew all I needed to know, but this book proved me wrong!

Great book with lots of great tips for the first time home buyer. I am looking for a house. This will be my first time purchasing. The book came in handy with information on taxes, repairs, maintenance and anything and everything that has to do with your house. It is not just about finding and buying a house but owning and maintaining your home. It almost makes you think if you are actually ready to purchase a home or just continue renting and not worry about being a home owner.

We don't own our own home yet, but we are looking! This book is much more than expected! It is loaded with information about not only owning a home for the first time, but advice on refinancing, income taxes, home repairs, figuring out what you make vs. what you spend...how to afford this big $ hungry monster. It even explains the different types of loans, using a mortgage broker or not, & gives lots of useful links to important websites. It also has sections on home foreclosure & the potential scams out there you want to avoid. There is so much info. in this skinny book, that I can't remember all of it! I have a feeling that we are going to be using this book a lot when we finally have our own home. I'm already finding it useful without home ownership! I am learning before the big purchase! This is a keeper!

The title of this rather strongly positions its readers as first time home owners. Well, my wife and I bought our first home in 1975 and I still found useful advice here. I will say that when I looked through the first chapter I had negative feelings - I thought it was too basic, too obvious, kind of a "How to button your shirt for Dummies" style. But I was wrong. Seeking better chapters I started flipping randomly and hit good stuff almost every time. That caused me to go back and actually read it, and yes, there is a bit of "do you really think anyone is so clueless that you needed to mention THAT?", but there's also plenty of "Huh - I didn't know that". If that's true for me after more than 30 years of home ownership, how much more true must it be for new owners or those about to buy? And in these tough economic times, I couldn't help thinking that the bits on foreclosures and remortgaging could be invaluable to a lot of people. I hope I never have any need for the things I picked up there, but again, I didn't know as much as I thought I did before I read it. I'd recommend this to anyone, first time or not.