Introduction

Welcome to Home Buying For Dummies, 4th Edition!

For about the cost of a couple of movie tickets, you can quickly and easily discover how to save thousands — perhaps even tens of thousands — of dollars the next time you buy a home.

How can we make such a claim? Easy. Each of us has spent decades personally advising thousands of people like you about home purchases and other important financial decisions. We’ve seen how ignorance of basic concepts and practices translates into money-draining mistakes. We know that many of these mistakes are both needless and avoidable.

No one is born knowing how to buy a home. Everyone who’d like to buy a home must learn how to do it. Unfortunately, too many people get a crash course in the school of hard knocks — and learn by making costly mistakes at their own expense.