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Should I Refinance My Home

You purchased your initial home — now what?

Nearly 6.4 million homes were purchased in the U.S. last year — and a heap of of them are owned by young first-time buyers like you, who now find themselves wondering, “What’s next?” And with the subprime crisis speedily getting a usual slide in the housing market, you’re looking for guidance on how to stay on track financially.

With Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home, you’ll get the essential info that will make the divergence amid worrying regarding your home and enjoying each minute you spend there. Packed with tips and timely reminders, our latest USA TODAY book gives you the lowdown on:

From the PublisherSkip the stress! Enjoy your new home.

From the Author 9 Money-Saving Tips for New Homeowners
From the writers of Nolo’s ESSENTIAL GUIDE for FIRST-TIME HOMEOWNERS

October 27, 2008 Berkeley, CA–Today’s economic climate may raise anxiety levels, specially for first-time homeowners. New householders probably passed stringent tests to qualify for a loan, and for many, cash reserves are at an all-time low. How may they receive pleasure from their new nest without stressing out? Ilona Bray and Alayna Schroeder writers of The Essential Guide for First-Time Homeowners (Nolo; October 2008 ISBN 13: 978-1-4133-0895-2) offer nine helpful tips:

1. Improve for you, not for resale. You may have thought you’d be in your introductory home a few years, but find that dismal market conditions keep you in place. If you need to stay put longer than expected, improvements (like an extra bathroom or bedroom) may make the place more comfortable long term. But if you’re justifying laying out cash for major home improvements with the idea that you’ll recoup the cost when you sell, do a great deal of exploration first. Most home reconstructing projects don’t recompense for themselves. You’ll get the greatest resale boost from kitchen and bathroom remodels and front-yard landscaping.

2. Protect the environment, save money. By hanging your laundry out to dry, washing clothes in cold water, cleaning or replacing your furnace and air-conditioning filters, putting on a sweater and turning your thermostat down a degree or two in cold weather, and turning down the water heater (120° is warm sufficient for most people), you may both save a bundle and support the environment.

3. That housewarming party? Make it a potluck. Have every one pitch in for a potluck, or undertake a cheaper, originative option: Serving afternoon high tea is requiring little effort on the pocketbook (and you!) than a dinner party with wine and grilled meat.

4. Prioritize your reconstructing and embellishing projects. Start with projects crucial to the house’s structural integrity and your family’s comfort; don’t choose new carpeting over fixing a leaky roof (or leaks may destruct the new carpet!). And throw in a couple cheap “extras”–a may of paint and a lot of ornamental pillows won’t cost you much, but may make the place seem so much more like home.

5. Save for huge expenses. New householders ofttimes forget that annual property tax and insurance payments are on the horizon, ordinarily at the beginning of the new year (unless these expenditures were already worked into your mortgage payment). Create a savings goal that will cover such costs, then set apart a bit each month.

6. Figure regular maintenance costs into your per month budget. Most householders need to spend 1% to 3% of their home’s value for annual maintenance. Deferring maintenance in hard times may once in a while make things worse–and more expensive–later. For example, failing to deal with peeling exterior paint may lead to arid rot.

7. Enjoy the quest for low-cost home furnishings. Challenge yourself: Don’t merely walk into a store and buy a house full of furniture. Try garage sales, thrift stores, and websites like Craigslist or eBay. Wood furniture have a tendancy to offer the best value, because it’s effortlessly cleaned and won’t need reupholstering. For new items, bargain hunt, piece by piece, from online and local retailers.

8. Make the most of homeowner tax deductions. As a homeowner, you may now deduct the costs of mortgage interest (including points), private mortgage insurance premiums (PMI), mortgage prepayment and late payment penalties (but undertake to stay clear from these!), state and local property taxes, interest on a home betterment loan, and interest on home-equity debt (with sure dollar limits). Plus, now that you’re itemizing, you may also take vantage of other deductions such as gifts to charity.

9. Get a refund on your homeowners’ insurance premium. Even if you salaried a whole year’s premium when you purchased your house, you may make changes to your policy and get either a refund or a reduction of your payments midyear. For example, you might qualify for a discount if you add a security scheme and fire alarm, deadbolt locks, or (depending on where you live) hurricane-resistant shutters. While you’re at it, tell your car insurer with regards to your alter of address–if it’s in a zip code with a lower crime rate, that premium might go down, too.

About THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE for FIRST-TIME HOMEOWNERS: Maximize Your Investment & Enjoy Your New Home is filled with easy-to-implement ideas, essential counsel and helpful reminders with regards to how householders may keep their biggest investment working for them. Nolo is proud to join with USA TODAY, the most-read newspaper in the U.S.A, to manufacture a series of books on personal finance and legal topics. By combining Nolo’s topical skillfulness and team of in-house editors, researchers, and writers with USA TODAY’s trademark graphics and cutting-edge reporting, we hope to create books that set new standards for being relevant, perceptive and helpful.

About the AuthorSchroeder specializes in employment law and real estate and is co-author of Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home. Before joining Nolo, she worked as an associate in a huge San Francisco law firm where she represented employers in litigation, drafted employee handbooks and policies and counseled employers on sound employment practices. Schroeder likewise has experience in employment consulting and humane resources. She holds a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law.

Bray is an author and legal editor at Nolo, specializing in real estate, immigration law, and nonprofit fundraising. She is co-author of Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home and likewise edits a number of Nolo’s little business books. Bray’s working background includes solo practice, nonprofit, and corporate stints, as well as long periods of volunteering, including an internship at Amnesty International’s main legal office in London. She received her law degree and a Masters degree in East Asian (Chinese) Studies from the University of Washington.

Most helpful client reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Useful but superficial
By t9k
This is not so much an “Essential Guide” as it is a collection of mostly-useful tips, diluted with a lot of cute fluff. For example, there is a chapter with a large total of bullet point lists for handling disputes with neighbors, along with a cookie recipe so you may “Woo the Neighbors With These Chocolate-Filled Cookies”.

The book tries to cover too galore subjects (home maintenance, real estate finance, neighbor law, etc.) and ends up with insufficient detail. The chapter on home maintenance holds a brief schedule of things to check in each month, but what is a first-time homeowner going to get out of the recommendation to “Test the pressure and temperature valve on your water heater by opening it and permitting a lot of water to flow out”? As with most of the tips, a bit more detail telling the reader how to do this would make the counsel utile rather of just nagging.

Most of the tips are helpful if incomplete, and most first-time householders would gain from skimming this book. But the book must not be considered a substitute for a real reference on any of the subjects it covers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Useful book
By S. J Parker
I’m not a basi time homebuyer, but I have 3 children who will be soon.

This book has a lot of good selective information for firstborn timers. Like knowing when you move in where your main shut offs are – gas, water, electric, etc.

In a great deal of important areas not sufficient detail & specifics, i.e. financing, insurance, home inspections. Of course this must have been researched prior to purchase.

The author talks alot regarding home maintenance & upgrading. Before making any conclusions on energy saving changes – “get an energy audit. A professional will carry out assorted tests and valuate your current energy use. There will be a great deal of upfront costs – ordinarily $100. to $200 – and your utility company may even offer these services or subsidize payment to an independent auditor, if you ask. In any case, the audit may discover without apparent effort correctible problems. For more information, visit the Dept of Energy’s Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy website ( www.eere.energy.gov; type “energy audit” in the search box).

Other constituents of the book didn’t seem revelent, i.e. hybrid cars & organic gardening. Other books cover this type of data in much more detail.

Overall it is an informative book & I’d commend it. The 3 stars was an error, which this review page won’t let me change. 5 stars

1 of 1 humans found the following review helpful.
Don’t buy a house without it
By Dr. Bojan Tunguz
Navigating the maze of new and often times competing demands that owning a new home may fetch along may be rather overwhelming. This is doubly so if one is attempting to do it on one’s own, without an informed aid of a friend or a relative. Even so, there are numerous legal and practical hurdles that may get in the way, which even the most seasoned homeowner has not anticipated. For all such potential and current homeowners, “The Essential Guide for First-Time Homeowners: Maximize Your Investment & Enjoy Your New Home” is an necessary and utile guide. It covers all the fundamentals of selecting and purchasing your introductory home, and guides you beyond the firstborn weeks and months of ownership and helps you with utile tips on how to maintain your home so that it is value may not decrease over time. The only objection that I have with the book is that it devotes one whole chapter to “greening” of your home. Most of the suggestions staged in that chapter are so outlandish (“get rid of the lawn”), impractical, or both for most residential areas, that it distinctly takes away from other than as supposed or expected well written and utile book. Even with that caveat, this is still a very good book to consider purchasing if you are seriously taking into account buying your introductory home. It could very well save you a lot of time and cash in a long run.

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