Mortgage Locator. Mortgages For Dummies, 3rd Edition

For many of us, the single biggest financial transaction is buying a house. Even more significant than the hefty down payment we fork over is the 15- to 30-year mortgage that needs feeding every month. Mortgage Locator If you have this much at stake, a little knowledge can go a long way, which is where Eric Tyson and Ray Brown come in. In Mortgages for Dummies, Tyson and Brown (who also wrote Home Buying for Dummies and House Selling for Dummies) provide a comprehensive introduction for anyone who is contemplating a mortgage. The book tells you how to evaluate your creditworthiness, determine your borrowing power, and shop for a lender, as well as covering the various types of loans. The authors also devote a section to refinancing and discuss what you should consider when prepaying a loan. They include amortization and remaining-balance tables, and a useful glossary. Whether you're a first-time home buyer or are just looking to refinance, you'll find this a valuable, easy-to-use guide. --Harry C. Edwards --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Fun-to-read.... Deciphers mortgage mumbo-jumbo." —San Jose Mercury News "A favorite.... Fun reading and informative." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Objective, down-to-earth.... A book I wish I'd read before purchasing my first lemon-of-a-home." —Wilmington News Journal
"Invaluable information, especially for the first time home buyer." —Fort Worth Star-Telegram --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excellent, plain English explanation of the various mortgages and how to choose one that best fits your situation. Mortgage Locator Also details how to shop and negotiate the best deal...with all the hype about shopping on the internet, that excellent chapter alone is worth the price of the book. I learned a lot about "creative financing" techniques like 80-10-10 loans that I knew nothing about before picking up a book. I've tried other mortgage books and found them to be dull and not to the point. This book was a joy to read and left me thinking clearly!

You will definitely find out just about anything you wanted to know about mortgages: fixed and ARM (all the others are variations on these themes). My only small complaint is the same as the reviewer's below: several times the authors refer to appendices that are not there! There are also some typos ("suprised") some in prominent places -- it just gave me the feeling that the book was rushed. One piece of information I felt they could have spent more time on was the mechanical side of paying down a 30 mortgage faster. For example, how many years does it take off your loan to put in one extra payment a year, or $100 per month, etc.... Home buyers often pick a 30 year mortgage because of the low monthly payment, but can strive to put in an extra payment a year to save tens of thousands of dollars of interest. This information would have given more details to the types of mortgages most people get. The authors spent a bit too much time by comparison on some relatively rare loans (reverse mortgages) although no one will put a gun to your head and make you read those parts. Overall, it was easy to follow and the best of the books on understanding how mortgages work and how to compare them.

I've found this book the most useful of the dozens I scanned through at the bookstore. The numbers used in the examples better represented the real-world of 1999 than the others. The authors do a good job of explaining the steps one should take to obtaining a mortgage and the many terms that are thrown about the mortgage industry. I didn't come away from the book with a definitive answer to "which mortgage is right for me?" but I certainly understood what the trade-offs were between the different ones.
One problem Mortgage Locator I did have with the book is the many references to the graphs in "Appendix C" of how the ARM indices have behaved over time. The copy of the book I have has no such information in appendix C or any other appendix.