Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home (book with CD-Rom & Audio)

Get the right house at the right price with insider tips and advice from the experts! Say goodbye to landlords and laundromats with Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home. This timely title will help you find the right place to live and invest in -- and even have fun doing it. Filled with interesting facts, real-life stories and common pitfalls to avoid, this book provides everything you need to select the right house, the right mortgage, the right agent, the right inspections -- and much more. Get the inside scoop on: deciding between a house, condo, co-op or townhouse exploring your local market for the best value qualifying for and lining up financing getting the right inspections and insurance negotiating with sellers or new home builders successfully closing the deal Read through the real-world experiences of over 20 first-time homebuyers, as well as valuable insights from a team of 13 real estate professionals, including: brokers attorneys who specialize in real estate a home inspector a neighborhood researcher a mortgage specialist and more! Along with this step-by-step handbook, you'll get The Homebuyer's Toolkit, a CD-ROM that includes dozens of forms and MP3s which will help you find the right place, crunch the numbers, interview real estate professionals, and even borrow down payment money from your parents. The brand new 2nd edition of Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home is fully updated to reflect the dramatically changing housing market and includes new information on buying foreclosed and bank-owned properties, including what to look for when you're considering these types of homes. You'll get the most up-to-date information on the increasingly strict mortgage market, plus additional tips on how to "green" your new home.