Your New House: The Alert Consumer's Guide to Buying and Building a Quality Home
Author: Alan Fields, Denise Fields
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1889392057
Publisher: Windsor Peak Press (November, 1999)
Sales Rank: 8,959
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Good Book...All questions were not answered
I am a first time buyer and wanted to make sure that I was getting the best deal at every end of the process. I read this book and although many parts of it were good, it did not apply to my situation. This book is excellent for those that are building a custom built home with a builder. If you are looking to buy a production home (centex, KB, pulte) this is not the book you will want. I found some of the examples to be informative, but overall I will need another book to answer my questions. I hope my review helped.
Rating: 5 out of 5
An informed consumer's best resource
I am an architect and a former building inspector. Over the past few years I have given copies of this book to friends and relatives as they embark on their homebuilding adventure. This book says it like it is and it does not gloss over or romanticize the home building process. (Yes, its the American Dream, your castle - but is it built on a swamp or will it blow down in the first wind storm? It is also probably your most valuable asset. So how do you keep the dream from becoming a nightmare? Read this book!)
You will learn who all the key parties are, their interests and biases. You learn how to keep control of the project (hey, its your money!)
The humor keeps you reading (and functions as comic relief on those subjects that would drive an uniformed consumer to tears or suicide). The authors have lived the nightmare and allow the reader to learn from their mistakes.
This book is a minor investment realtive to the cost of a new house - you owe it to yourself to buy it and read it before you ever visit a model home, hire an architect, or sit down with a home builder!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Essential
This is the single best homebuying book we've found. The section on binding arbitration clauses alone is worth the price of the book. Concise, sensible, at times overly cautious -- this book is a necessary skeptical foil to overenthusiastic homebuyers who may be getting themselves into a rotten home or rotten purchase agreement. No, it's not perfect. I'm sure some of the technical information is incorrect. All homebuying books suffer this problem. But the 1-star reviews of this book are inconceivable. Perhaps they were written by shady builders or sellers who are upset that this book is scaring away unwary buyers? Similar Products
The Brand-New House Book: Everything You Need to Know About Planning, Designing, and Building a Custom, Semi-Custom, or Production-Built House
Tips & Traps When Building Your Home
Build It Right!: What to Look for in Your New Home
The Ultimate New-Home Buying Guide
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