Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home

by Ilona Bray, Marcia Stewart, Alayna Schroeder

When it comes to buying a home, the first time is always the hardest—whether it's searching for the perfect property, struggling to raise a down payment, or striking the deal. Fortunately for first-timers, Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home provides key information on each step of the purchase process.This book incorporates down-to-earth, authoritative advice from a panel of 12 real estate professionals, including real estate brokers, a home inspector, a mortgage specialist plus experts on home insurance, condominiums, homeowner's associations, neighborhood demographics, and more. Real estate newbies will get the best information available • purchasing houses (old and new), condos, coops, and townhouses • realistic budget, mortgage and credit advice • borrowing a down payment from family and friends • doing a thorough property inspection • making an attractive offer and successfully closing the deal Every year more than 2.5 million American homes are purchased by first-time buyers. Specially tailored to meet the needs of these motivated buyers, Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home is insightful, entertaining, and easy-to-use. This guide comes complete with tons of added-value features a CD filled with MP3s and forms, including home buying wish list, budget worksheet, home inspection checklist, and interview questions for real estate agents, brokers, inspectors, and other professionals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Self Help, Business, Finance, How To, Economics

380 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2007

About the author

Ilona Bray is an award-winning author of books for adults and children. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and received a law degree from the University of Washington. In her role as an author/editor at Nolo.com, she specializes in real estate, immigration law, and nonprofit fundraising.

Reviews

[La Crosse County Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published August 2015

Buying a home is one of the scariest and most stressful processes that anyone can undertake, especially for first-time home buyers. After all, it isn’t like buying a new blender or even a refrigerator. With all those zeros on the price tag, you want to make sure that you find the exact right home, one that you will be happy in for many years. The best defense against making serious and costly mistakes is to have the most information possible.

Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home is your most important weapon against doubts and misinformation. If you’re still on the fence about whether or not to take the plunge, here are some advantages to owning your own home, according to the book:

1. Instant leverage: buying a home will allow you to control a very large asset with a comparatively small investment.
2. Equity: the difference between the market value of the home and what you have left to pay against the loans and mortgages. Over time the equity will grow.
3. It’s better than paying rent to someone else. Pay it to yourself as an investment instead.
4. You can live in and borrow against your investment.
5. Creditworthiness: paying down a large debt – such as a house – improves your credit rating.
6. Tax breaks and tax credits: both can be significant, depending on current laws.

The book will also thoroughly explain how to decide what type and location of your new home, making a budget, searching the market, choosing a realtor and financial institution, negotiation and inspection.

Once the closing and moving have been completed, the book even lists ways of saving money for new homebuyers: hang laundry when possible instead of drying, wash clothes in cool or cold water, lower your thermostat, keep up with changing furnace and air conditioning filters, turn down the water heater, use the dishwasher to save water, and plant trees for shade.

Look for other practical home-buying and home-selling books at the La Crosse County Libraries in Holmen, Onalaska, West Salem, Bangor, and Campbell.

Find this book and other titles within our catalog.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I checked this book out this spring! I started reading it thinking my husband and I were going to buy my grandfather's house, figuring I'd just skip over all the parts that didn't apply to us. Luckily, I stink at skimming, so I ended up reading nearly everything. I learned SO much about this whole home-buying process, from vocabulary (what "points" are, for example) to what to expect and what to watch out for at each stage in the process. Buying a house turned out to be a whirlwind experience once we decided to buy an entirely different house, and having read the Nolo book was a sanity-saver for me. It's so well organized and well written--very clear and easy to follow. I referred back to multiple sections many times, especially the chart on paying points to lower your interest rate (pg. 134) and how long it takes to recoup the costs. That page helped us know we shouldn't waste our money because the current cost of points is too high. Thank you, Nolo Press!

[Emma Simmons Antensteiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely helpful, clear explanations that weren't a total bore to read. Many testimonies in various situations of the home buying experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who has not dipped their toe in real estate.

[Margo Mandrillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we go. . .

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess I will finally move this to "read," I have definitely read the whole thing by now (except the new house sections) but the library keeps auto-renewing it, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, my experience reading this book totally validates my instinct to go into any big life decision by reading a 101-level book about it. I didn't really look to any other resources (except for talking to friends who'd bought recently) until we actually started reaching out to lenders, realtor, etc., because it was all in here and in plain English and not trying to sell me anything.

The one drawback I would say is that the 2021 housing market is so bizarre that all the "slow market" and half of the "hot market" advice doesn't really apply, but of course that's where a book stops and actual professional advice starts.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read most of the 2017 edition while buying my condo in Charleston. Very easy to understand and helpful in explaining the whole process.

[Natalee Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very informative read! It’s written in a manner that is user friendly to the average first time homebuyer!

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guide to buying my first home was great. It did very good job of taking the quite daunting task of purchasing a new home, and breaking it down into manageable and discrete steps. Things ended up moving a bit faster for my wife and I than we'd planned when buying a house, and while I had intended to read this book before we got well into our house hunting, it ended up being a great guide that helped us navigate the home-buying process while we're in the middle of it.

The expert advice and many useful forms really make this book helpful, and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone looking to buy their first home. I learned a lot, and feel much more confident about the process now!

[Nia Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to judge the book's value until I go through the buying process. It contained a lot of information that seemed helpful. Other information was less helpful (e.g., the moving process, settling in, general money saving strategies). I would have like more information about how to identify whether a house is overpriced & the expected maintenance costs.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid information and some ideas that I hadn't thought about it. I feel like one really needs to start the process and talk with professionals though for a more accurate picture of home purchasing, particularly given how much the market has changed in the last six months.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of really good information, all in one place. There's also a CD-Rom with worksheets for you to evaluate what you really want, do a budget, etc. It had some information I didn't know, which is saying something since I've researched a little too much into this stuff :)

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides basic but diverse information about buying a house. I particularly appreciated the topics on insurance and home inspections. The Nolo formatting tries to breakup the topics into manageable sections. Each chapter has a different "expert".

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is awesome and really made me feel more prepared during this process. You will still need to do some research on things in your state, but this book is a great start.

[Michael Ellsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW, this book is the most informative book!

[Shay · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not exactly a thrilling read, this book provided the information we needed, presented in clear language, to get us through the process of buying our first home.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended! This is a great tool that summarizes all aspects of the home buying process.

[Lee Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference book for Home buying. You don’t need to read it cover-to-cover, but it provides reliable, complete information.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. It's fine if you skip the boring filler and just read the parts that convey useful nuts-and-bolts information.

But be warned this is not a personal finance book -- there is little discussion cautioning readers against buying too much house. I mean, it's there, but the book just doesn't seem to care much about it, while it's pretty much the thing I care MOST about. And the perspectives provided are from real estate agents and other individuals with vested interests in getting people to buy homes (attorneys, inspectors, etc.), so it does often seem like a guide on how to help you buy their product.

[Flynn Heiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this book because I wanted to learn more about the home-buying process -- understand what the steps are, the terminology, and what costs to expect. I now feel like I have a much better grasp of what's involved, and expect to have just a little bit less stress if I ever am in a position to buy.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was this like the ultra paranoid version, or is home buying actually this scary? It felt like every other page had a story of someone getting screwed out of thousands of dollars. Either way, this was an informative book structured in a logical way. I'm sure I'll refer back to certain chapters at some point.

[Jenell Bakey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, comprehensive book for a first-time buyer like myself. I was afraid this would be a snore, more like a textbook or reference book, but I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy reading this cover to cover. I highly recommend this if you're house hunting and know nothing about the (very complicated) steps of buying a house.

[John Howland · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a complete novice to home buying and real estate in general, I found this book very useful. It is full of useful terms, common problems, and general advice. The book is formatted chronologically based on the home buying process itself and is useful both as a reference and for general reading. I did a lot of research on guides to buying a home and I was very happy with this one.

[Zahnii (Suzanne) Artis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, it only took two years to finish this book! :p. It really is more of a reference book but I really wanted to read it cover to cover to better understand the process of buying a house. When it’s time, I will absolutely go back to it. Lots of great info, and easy to understand for someone new to the process.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource to look over when starting that journey toward buying your first house. Great resources such as questions to ask potential realtors, inspection examples, and a simplified overview of the process start to finish.

[Elizabeth Chavun · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very clear on the way to pick a home and what to search for as far as loans. Some information I was aware and others not so much. If you a looking for an easy read on home buying I suggest this one.

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth the money. This reference includes many stories from real home-buyers, and the contributors are all experts. This gave my an excellent orientation as we ran a successful home-buying process ourselves.

[Mark Zodda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good resource that while pitched to first-time home buyers is well worth reading for those of us who have been through the process before and are looking to buy again. I only wish I had found this book before buying my first home, but am sure it will help this next time. Recommended.

[Sams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of information

The book has a lot of great information and does a great job at explaining the home buying process and what to expect.

[Katherine Cowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book, and then I bought a house. So I suppose the book worked!

[Richie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super useful.