Comment from Anonymous
Time July 19, 2010 at 11:22 am

I learned a lot about the mortgage busines
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment from Just Me
Time July 19, 2010 at 12:46 pm

I found Irwin’s Tips & Traps When Buying a Home useful when I bought my first house. I expect this to be useful also.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment from GINA RAY
Time July 19, 2010 at 1:55 pm

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.
Rating: 1 / 5

Comment from Uncle Rico
Time July 19, 2010 at 3:51 pm

The book has good information for the unsteady first time buyer. A must read if your are about to get your first mortgage. The book details like quirks in borrowing and the whole process from start to finish.

My only gripe is that the book may become outdated if not already. The mortgage industry is always develpoing new methods in which to fool borrowers.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment from MISTER SJEM
Time July 19, 2010 at 6:12 pm

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.
Rating: 4 / 5