Title Details

GARY W. ELDRED, PhD, has been a successful real estate investor for over twenty years and has served on the business school faculty at Stanford University and the University of Virginia. He is also the author of numerous real estate titles, such as the Make Money series; The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them), Third Edition; Value Investing in Real Estate; The Complete Guide to Second Homes for Vacations, Retirement, and Investment; Yes! You Can Own the Home You Want; and coauthor of Investing in Real Estate, Fourth Edition, all from Wiley.

Introduction: Will You Pay Too Much for Too Little?

1. AFFORDABLE DEPENDS ON YOU—NOT THE LENDER.

Secret #1. Affordability Depends on You.

Secret #2. How You Choose Your Property and Arrange Financing Will Add (or subtract) Tens (or even hundreds) of Thousands of Dollars to (from) Your Net Worth.

Secret #3. Separate the Emotional from the Financial.

Secret #4. Align Your Self-Talk with Your Priorities.

Secret #5. Don't Focus on the Kind of Home You Want Now, Focus on the Kind of Home You want 5, 10, or 15 Years From Now.

2. INCREASE YOUR BORROWING POWER.

Secret #6. 10,000 Lenders Set Their Own Standards.

Secret #7. You Can Make Your Qualifying Ratios Look Better.

Secret #8. You Can Lift Your Qualifying Income.

Secret #9. Reduce Your Disqualifying Debt.

Secret #10. Use Compensating Factors to Justify Higher Qualifying Ratios.

Secret #11. Never Fib to a Lender.

Secret #12. Can't Qualify on Your Own? Enlist the Help of a Cosigner, Co-Borrower, or Co-Owner.

Secret #13. Let Tenants pay Your Mortgage.

Secret #14. Don't Change Your Loan Status.

3. SLASH YOUR COST OF INTEREST.

Secret #15. Most Borrowers Who Want a Long-Term Fixed-Rate Loan Should Choose 15 years, not 30.

Secret #16. Lower Interest Rate Means Big Savings.

Secret #17. Lower rates Magnify Borrowing Power.

Secret #18. ARMs Can Offer Greater Borrowing Power, Lower Costs, with Manageable risk.

Secret #19. State and Local Housing finance Agencies Offer Low-Interest Mortgage Bond Loans.

Secret #20. Assume a Low Interest Rate Mortgage.

Secret #21. "Assume" a Nonassumable Mortgage.

Secret #22. Save $1000s with a Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC).

Secret #23. Seek Employer Assistance (or seek an employer who give assistance).

Secret #24. Trade Off Points for a Lower Interest Rate.

Secret #25. Negotiate a Temporary Buydown with the Sellers.

Secret #26. New Home Builders Offer Mortgage Incentives.

Secret #27. How to Borrow Jumbo Amounts Without Paying Jumbo Rates.

Secret #28. Your After-Tax, Cost of Borrowing May not be as Low as You've Been Told.

4. THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF ARMs.

Secret #29. ARMs do not Necessarily Present More Risk Than Fixed-Rate Loans.

Secret #30. ARMs for the Short-Term Don't Always Prove Best.

Secret #31. ARMs for the Long-Run: How to Lower Costs and Alleviate "Risk".

Secret #32. You Can (sort of) Forecast Interest Rates.

Secret #33. Watch Out for Low Teaser Rates.

Secret #34. Your Start (teaser) Rate Isn't Your Contract Rate.

Secret #35. No One Best Index.

Secret #36. Don't Ignore the Margin.

Secret #37. All Caps Aren't Created Equally.

Secret #38. That Flashy Convertible Could Prove to be a Clunker.

Secret #39. APRs tell You Nothing About ARMs (and very little about fixed-rates).

5. PERFECT YOUR CREDIT PROFILE.

Secret #40. Emphasize all 5 Cs of Credit Approval.

Secret #41. Credit Scores can Shape Your Destiny.

Secret #42. Your Credit "Score" Doesn't Necessary Represent Your Credit Strength.

Secret #43. You Can Discover Your Credit Scores.

Secret #44. You Can Improve Your Credit Score(s).

Secret #45. Garbage in, Garbage Out (GIGO).

Secret #46.Credit Repair Firms Can't Fix Your Credit or Boost Your Credit Scores.

Secret #47. Credit Counselor Can Scam You, Too.

Secret #48. Credit Counselors and Debt Management Firms Do Not Improve Your Credit Record or Boost Your Credit Score.

Secret #49. Bankruptcy (Chapter 7) Doesn't Ruin Your Credit.

Secret #50. Your Ex-Spouse can Ruin Your Credit (and other tales of double counting).

6. THE LOWDOWN ON LOW DOWNS.

Secret #51. You Can Buy with Little or Nothing Down.

Secret #52. No Matter How Much You earn, FHA May Hold the Key to Your Home Financing.

Secret #53. Discover FHA's Best Kept Secret: The 203 (k) Program.

Secret #54. Too Many Vets Pass up VA Loans.

Secret #55. The USDA Offers a Prime Choice for Low- to Moderate Income Homebuyers.

Secret #56. Community Lending Goes Mainstream.

Secret #57. Not-for-Profit Housing Groups Help People in Need to Buy and Finance Homes.

Secret #58. Local Governments Assist with Down Payments.

Secret #59. Even Fannie and Freddie Accept Little- or Nothing-Down Loans.

Secret #60. Cut the Cost of PMI by Learning Where Rates Break.

Secret #61. Before You Obtain a PMI Little- or Nothing-Down Loan, Understand the High Cost You'll be Paying.

Secret #62. Reduce the High Cost of Low Down Payments with a Second Mortgage.

Secret #63. Use Pledged Collateral to Eliminate PMI.

Secret #64. Search for Sellers with Low-Equity Assumables.

Secret $65. You Can Avoid PMI with a Higher Interest Rate Mortgage.

7. WIN BIG SAVINGS WITH SELLER FINANCING, FORECLOSURES, AND REOS.

Secret #66. Sellers can Nearly Always Beat the Banks at Their Own Game, But You Must Do More Than Ask.

Secret #67. Ask the Seller and Lender to Cooperate with a Refi Blend.

Secret #68. Bridge the Assumable Gap with a Seller Second.

Secret #69. Avoid the Bang of a Bursting Balloon.

Secret #70. Buy on the Installment Plan.

Secret #71. Try it Before You Buy It.

Secret #72. Buy and Lease Simultaneously.

Secret #73. Beat High Interest Rates with Wraparound Financing.

Secret #74. Don't Dilly-Dally with Due Deligence.

Secret #75. Negotiate a Pre-Foreclosure Workout.

Secret #76. Buy (carefully) at the Foreclosure Sale.

Secret #77. Locate a foreclosure Pro.

Secret #78. HUD May Hold the Keys to Your Home or Investment Property.

Secret #79. VA Offers Deals to Both Veterans and Non-Veterans.

Secret #80. Let Fannie or Freddie Treat You to Below-market Financing.

Secret #81. Buy and Finance Directly with a Lender.

8. BEWARE: FINE PRINT "GOTCHAS" AT WORK.

Secret #82. It's a Jungle Out There.

Secret #83. Tell Your Loan Rep to Take Out the Garbage.

Secret #84. Don't Place Much Faith in the Good Faith Estimate.

Secret #85. What's the Real Cost of a No Cost Mortgage?

Secret #86. Does Your Loan Permit Unlimited Prepayment?

Secret #87. An Assumable Loan May Offer Much Less Than You've Assumed.

Secret #88. Appraised Value Doesn't Necessary Equal Market Value.

Secret #89. On Occasion, Lenders Want Appraisers to Lowball Their Appraisals.

Secret #90. Appraisals Don't Forecast the Future.

9. ACHIEVE YOUR LOWEST RATE.

Secret #91. Refuse to Yield to the Yield-Spread Premium.

Secret #92. Red and Yellow, Black and White, Lenders Treat Them All Alike.

Secret #93. Rate Quotes: Fact or Fiction?

Secret #94. What Rate Will You Get at Closing?

Secret #95. Achieve Your Best Rate.

Secret #96. Industry Pros and Government Agencies Need Your Help.

Secret #97. How to (almost) Vanquish Tricks of the Trade.

10. MANAGE YOUR HOME AND HOME FINANCING FOR MAXIMUM RETURN.

Secret #98. Treat Your Home and Your Home Financing as an Investment.

Secret #99. Stay Alert for Opportunities to Refinance.

Secret 100. Use Refinancing to Create Other Benefits.

Secret #101. Refinance and Safely Invest the Proceeds.

Secret #102. Never Buy Bi-Weekly Baloney.

Secret #103. Cancel Your PMI. Get a Refund from FHA.

Secret #104. Negotiate Out of Escrow.

Secret #105. Just Say No to Home Equity Loans.

Secret #106. Trouble, Trouble, What to Do?

Conclusion: You Can Live on the House.

Index.