Mortgages For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Now updated! The proven guide to negotiating the best mortgage terms--and surviving today's lending crisis. In today's hostile real estate market, homebuyers and owners are daunted by the prospect of securing a mortgage. In Mortgages For Dummies, Third Edition, bestselling personal finance authors Eric Tyson and Ray Brown give borrowers timely solutions, whether they need a loan to buy their first home, want to refinance their existing mortgage in the face of escalating payments, or tap into the equity they've built up. This revised edition features up-to-the-minute information on subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages, as well as updated worksheets and tools for calculating the costs and payments associated with a mortgage. Tyson and Brown decipher the jargon and point out all the fiscal pitfalls that borrowers need to know, showing them how to determine their borrowing power, select the right loan, find the best lender and options, and fill out all the paperwork correctly. This no-nonsense, comprehensive resource is a must for every homeowner or homeowner-to-be. For Eric Tyson's biography, see page 67.

Customer Reviews:

Just what the doctor ordered

By A Customer - May 10, 1999

Excellent, plain English explanation of the various mortgages and how to choose one that best fits your situation. 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!

very helpful, if not extremely polished

By M. H. Bayliss "book queen" - September 22, 2000

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... read more

Very useful for first time home buyer

By Paul Moore - January 5, 2000

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 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.