Buying or selling real estate is a big undertaking involving a complex process with many moving parts. So whether you’re a buyer or seller, you need to be informed and understand as much about it as you can. The problem, though, is that what you find online is often incomplete at best and just flat wrong at worst. So it’s a good idea to go old school and read the best books on the topic before taking that big step. Here, then, are our picks for the top-5 real estate books to help buyers and sellers in Salt Lake.
1. Home Buying for Dummies
With roughly 2,500 different manuals in its simplifying series, the “for Dummies” franchise has a guide on almost every important topic. And that includes real estate books to help the inexperienced or overwhelmed without a forest of cluttering details.
“The most recent edition of Home Buying For Dummies, released in 2016, takes recent market editions into account and provides well-researched information about every step of the home-buying process, including how to pick a team of professionals to help you your search, how to avoid absurd closing costs, how to get the best mortgage possible, and more.”
2. Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home, Ilona Bray, J.D.
Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home is often recommended as one of the best real estate books for first-time buyers. It “holds all the answers to questions you may not have even thought of yet, including researching local markets and listings, creating a budget, qualifying for loans, negotiating and closing deals successfully, and much more.”
The book provides valuable insights from 15 industry professionals, including “[b]rokers, attorneys, mortgage specialists, a home inspector, a neighborhood researcher, and more.” What you get you then is a comprehensive treatment of the process for first-time buyers, as well as “real-life stories from over 20 first-time homebuyers.”
3. The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (And How to Avoid Them), Gary W. Eldred
This one of our picks for the best real estate books takes a different tack by showing you all the mistakes homebuyers make and how to avoid them. It’s especially valuable for first-time buyers because it shows you the most common mistakes, from those involved in “negotiating with sellers to shopping around for the best mortgage and handling closing.”
The106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (And How to Avoid Them) is basically a compilation of “the experience of hundreds of homebuyers, real estate agents, home builders, and mortgage lenders.” The idea is that when you see the mistakes from all the various angles, you’ll be able to avoid making them.
4. Selling Your House: Nolo’s Essential Guide, Ilona Bray, J.D.
This one of our real estate books offers a comprehensive overview of the whole selling process. Still, it sticks to the most important basics so that you won’t get bogged down in unnecessary details. The selling advice offered in Selling Your House: Nolo’s EssentialGuide is typically clear and concise.
Of particular value is the emphasis placed on preparatory work, especially decluttering. But the book doesn’t simply tell you that you should declutter – it gives you plenty of actionable tips to enable you to do it successfully.
Another unique feature of selling Your House: Nolo’s Essential Guide is the chapter that teaches you about determining and then leveraging the best features of your home. This is a key element of successful marketing and an element of modern, creative approaches to selling.
5. Next Generation Real Estate: New Rules for Smarter Home Buying & Faster Selling, Brendon DeSimone
This one of our top-5 real estate books has valuable information for both buyers and sellers and so is one of the best resources available. Next Generation Real Estate: New Rules for SmarterHome Buying & Faster Selling contains interviews with and tips from top executives in the big, premier real estate companies such as Apartment Therapy, Zillow, and Trulia.
In addition to advice from top industry experts, this book also contains tips on leveraging hot, modern trends. You’ll learn how to use the latest technology and deploy up-to-date best practices. As a seller, you’ll learn unique, creative strategies and how to gain an advantage by getting inside buyers’ heads.
Are Real Estate Books Enough?
As valuable and chock full of actionable information as these books are, are they enough? Well, in most cases, they aren’t. There’s just nothing that can replace the skill, experience, and expertise of a good local Salt Lake agent. And then there’s also the personal touch and support you get from an agent.
So, yes, read up and learn all you can. Then go out and find a good agent – one who knows the local markets inside and out. You’ll then be armed with the knowledge you need and the expert assistance to complement what you’ve learned. When you’ve read the real estate books and are ready to work with a good agent, contact us today at (801) 755-3865.