Rating: 
Summary: This helped me understand the homebuying process
Review: I bought this book along with "The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them)" (Gary W. Eldred, Ph.D.) and enjoyed both. Irwin's book neatly describes the complete homebuying process and is extremely easy to read. Included in the book are several checklists that I found useful, and discussions on financing options, home remodeling considerations, and tax impacts that owning a home will create. I read the book in a couple days' time and often referred back to it as I was going through the homebuying process; I'm sure you will, too.
Rating:
Summary: This helped me understand the homebuying process
Review: I bought this book along with "The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them)" (Gary W. Eldred, Ph.D.) and enjoyed both. Irwin's book neatly describes the complete homebuying process and is extremely easy to read. Included in the book are several checklists that I found useful, and discussions on financing options, home remodeling considerations, and tax impacts that owning a home will create. I read the book in a couple days' time and often referred back to it as I was going through the homebuying process; I'm sure you will, too.
Rating:
Summary: This helped me understand the homebuying process
Review: I bought this book along with "The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (& How to Avoid Them)" (Gary W. Eldred, Ph.D.) and enjoyed both. Irwin's book neatly describes the complete homebuying process and is extremely easy to read. Included in the book are several checklists that I found useful, and discussions on financing options, home remodeling considerations, and tax impacts that owning a home will create. I read the book in a couple days' time and often referred back to it as I was going through the homebuying process; I'm sure you will, too.
Rating: 
Summary: Starting Place
Review: I bought this book just to get aquainted with the real estate business. This book lacks the detail that I was looking for, but for the person who is not big on reading, I would recommend this book. Also, the author reverts back to 'big cities' such as New York, New York, and New York... as you can see, this can get a bit annoying. He also has a hard time finding the sex of the people he speaks of; one moment the buyer is a female and in the next paragraph the buyer becomes a male. (It gets confusing trying to figure out who he is referring to when he says "she"). Hope this helps!!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: I found this book to be very disappointing. For one thing, it is very generic, offering no real, specific advice that you couldn't have thought of yourself. But my main problem with it is that it is all over the place; for example, the chapter on "Selecting the Right Mortgage" is three chapters after the chapter on "Making the Offer to Buy" and two chapters after the one on "Learning from Disclosures on a Home Inspection." Sure, as long as you know the order in which you should read this book (Chapters 1, 4, 3, 11, 12, 2, 7, 6, 13, 5, 8, 15, 17, 14, 16), it's not too confusing. But why bother with the maze? Go ahead and spend the extra $6 on "Home Buying for Dummies," which I found to be a thousand times better than "Buy Your First Home."
Rating:
Summary: This book is the BEST first step to your first house
Review: I have never owned a home, but am ready to buy. I didn't even know where to start. Should I just call an agent? I decided to read up, first. This book walks you through the process of choosing a house (why NOT to buy a house on a corner), through how to get a mortgage (and what mortgage setup fees you shouldn't pay), how to get pre-approved and why this is important, why you should hire a Home Inspector, and how to close a deal. Full of inside tips that the novice would not know. I'm sure this book will save me thousands of dollars.
Rating:
Summary: Most useful book during my home search...
Review: I read few books when shopping for a new home and of all the books I read I found this one to be most useful. This books talks about everything that a 1st time home buyer needs to know. Maybe it could have been more detailed but when you are buying a home and you are a first time buyer, you are under lot of tension and you do not have time to go thru bulky home buying books. In fact I used to carry this book around as reference when I was shopping for a new home to lookup terms the agents/lender were talking about. I would recommend this book to any 1st time home buyer or atleast read this before jumping into more detailed books.
Rating:
Summary: Good to start with a short book first
Review: I started trying to figure all this out by reading a book of 100 questions and answers about home buying (by Glink). Boy was that confusing!If you're a busy professional like me, you first need an executive summary and then you can go into the detailed analysis. This book is an executive summary. It gives you the whole picture first so you have a road map in front of you. You can read it in 2 casual sittings and at the end of it you are not overwhelmed by data. You get a holistic sense of what the process is about. Now you can fill in the gaps by reading one of the longer books.
Rating:
Summary: A great primer for the first-time home buyer
Review: I'm buying my first home, unfortunately in the ultra-expensive Bay Area. I read a few of the Dummies books, which were adequate, and then came across this book. Irwin's book is a fairly easy read - you can skim the parts you already know (i.e. if you're not buying a fixer-uper, skip that part), and concentrate on what you don't know. He doesn't go very far in depth into any one subject - the book is only 180 pages - but he gives a layman's explanation of almost every part of the home buying process, from offers, to financing, to inspections, to repairs. And I don't think you need anything more in depth than this to buy a home. I actually read this book half-way through my own home buying process, and I still found it very valuable and useful. I can't claim that it saved me any money - it didn't. But it did reassure me that what I was doing was right - and that is well worth the cost of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A great primer for the first-time home buyer
Review: I'm buying my first home, unfortunately in the ultra-expensive Bay Area. I read a few of the Dummies books, which were adequate, and then came across this book. Irwin's book is a fairly easy read - you can skim the parts you already know (i.e. if you're not buying a fixer-uper, skip that part), and concentrate on what you don't know. He doesn't go very far in depth into any one subject - the book is only 180 pages - but he gives a layman's explanation of almost every part of the home buying process, from offers, to financing, to inspections, to repairs. And I don't think you need anything more in depth than this to buy a home. I actually read this book half-way through my own home buying process, and I still found it very valuable and useful. I can't claim that it saved me any money - it didn't. But it did reassure me that what I was doing was right - and that is well worth the cost of the book.
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