Randy Johnson
1 OUTSTANDING!! A MUST READ!!!!
Before purchasing my first home I purchased and read many books on the homebuying process including:
-The 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make
-100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask
-The 106 Mortgage Secrets All Homebuyers Must Learn--But Lenders Don't Tell
-Home Buying for Dummies by Eric Tyson
-How to Buy a Home When You Can't Afford It by Robert Irwin
-Mortgages for Dummies by Eric Tyson
-Complete Idiots Guide to buying and selling a home
-How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Your Home Mortgage, 2nd Editionby Randy Johnson
Randy Johnson's book was by far the most helpful and informational about the mortgage process. This books provides insights and tips to avoid the pitfalls of the mortgage process. The authors website also has many useful free programs and worksheets to help you analyze loans and the mortgage market. This book will truly save you thousands of dollars on your next mortgage. Educate yourself to the process. Put this book at the top of your reading list before you buy a house.
2 makes you wanna rush out and refi your home!
best book on mortgages i ever read. gifted it to the guy i sold my house to. as soon as he read it, he called up randy johnson and refi'd his home.(it had been 3 weeks since he bought it!)
3 The best place to start...
An excellent and detailed book about all the options, choices and benefits of various mortgage products and strategies. A book that can literally save you thousands upon thousands of dollars - not merely by comparison shopping but by making sure you actually go shop for the right product. Absolutely required reading before a home purchase or refinance.
4 250 pages dedicated to obtaining a mortgage
There hasn't been a single question about mortgage this book hasn't fully answered for me. This book is geared towards the first time home buyer who can't tell the difference between a mortgage from a smorgage. Although it won't make you an expert, it will provide a comprehensive understanding of every aspect of obtaining a mortgage. I particularly found the section on garbage fees very helpful. It has shaved off hundreds of dollars from my closing fees, and that alone was worth the price and the time invested in reading this book.
5 not very useful
Very disappointing. Contrary to the title, I did not find any useful information on how to save money on a mortgage. The author spends very little time on junk fees which can add hundreds or even thousands of $$$ in unnecessary fees to unwary buyers.
The book also makes little use of the internet resources that are now available to compare rates.
I would also expect a general opinion as to certain large lenders.
There is little useful information here. Save your money and buy a copy of your credit report instead.
6 Good Book for Loan Officer Too.
As a new Loan Officer and looking for some real world experience i'm looking for some book with some real life advise and experience that i can gain deep knowledge about mortgage.
This book give a solid foundation and in depth knowledge that i can't get from other Loan Officer in our company.
I will definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for some in depth knowledge and practical way to learn this industry and save money and time for homeowner as well as for new loan officer.
i'm getting another one because the first book is fully hightlighted.
7 A Must Read for Home Owners
As both a home owner and a mortgage reseacher, I found Randy's book, "How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Home Mortgage", to be invaluable both from personal perspective and professional perspective.
Through this very well written book with lots of practical guides and hints, Randy tought me a lot of details about home mortgage, mortgage refinancing, and saving a lot of money on your next home purchase or refiance.
So read Randy's book and save yourself money!
8 Tell it like it is!!!
The book is written in an understandable language for the lay person. It provides plenty of examples and tables which back up what the author is saying. In addition, the author provides worksheets from his website which helps readers to calculate mort. payment, etc. The reader definately will have a knowledge of how to negotiate your interest rate and eliminate unnecessary fees. The author touches on the topic of credit which is what we all need to obtain a house. If you're tired of being abused by individuals in the industry, then this book is for you.
9 Invaluable
If you've ever stumbled blindly through the process of getting a mortgage, you'll feel like you're reading an expose as you go through this book. Johnson completely demystifies how the "system" works. He explains the differences between mortgage brokers and loan reps, what all those fees are on your closing statements, who's getting your money and why, the approval process, the advantages and disadvantages of the many different loan types, how brokers and loan reps can benefit from your ignorance, and more.
The book is written in plain English, and Johnson does what most of the people in the industry can't or won't: He explains things to you like he *wants* you to understand what he's saying.
If forewarned is forearmed, you'll go into the process armed to the teeth after reading this book.
10 Outstanding
The book covers all the basics and in my opinion its very objective and provides a great deal of information for both new home buyers and experienced alike.
11 Absolutely Invaluable
I can't recommend this gem of a book highly enough. I read it after digesting two other, more general books on house buying, as well as reading about mortgages on a number of financial websites, and thought it couldn't teach me anything I did not already know about mortgages. I was very, very wrong. Pretty much everything I thought I understood about how to shop for a mortgage was incorrect. I was making every classic blunder that Randy Johnson identifies -- and I think I am significantly above average in my understanding of personal finance. If you are an intelligent person who likes to make informed financial decisions, you owe it to yourself to carefully study this book.
12 Robert J. Bruss, San Francisco Chronicle (12/8/02)
#2 of year's 10 top real estate books. Whether you are a buyer, a refinancing homeowner or a real estate agent, this book is packed with insider knowledge from an experienced mortgage broker. Written from the viewpoint of a lender, the author shares tips savvy borrowers need to know.
13 I wish their were more stars.
I recently purchased the second edition of this book from www.amazon.com . I chose it because it had such impressive customer reviews, but it was even better than I expected! HOW TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON YOUR HOME MORTGAGE was undoubtedly the most valuable reading I've done in a long time. The advice will probably save me money every month for the rest of my life. I am so glad I read it before I completed the mortgage on my first home, I can just imagine the readers who are writing their second or third morgages kicking themselves as they turn the pages. IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE THE TIME TO READ ANYTHING BEFORE YOU BUY YOUR NEXT HOME, READ THIS BOOK FIRST!!!!
14 Insider's Look at the Mortgage Industry & Processes
This book is very easy to read and understand most of the math. It reads like you're having a friendly conversation with an industry insider who is trying hard to explain things in simple, non-technical ways, and even better, the author isn't trying to sell you something. You can't get this kind of information by talking to a real live mortgage broker, since they only want to sell you a deal.
This book has helped me to understand a lot about how the mortgage process works, and what I should look out for. If I had to find something to criticize, I would say that there is a lot of explanation over loan types that I will never use, but at least I do know more about what's out there.
Actually, for me, this book didn't steer me into doing anything different for my upcoming home purchase, but it did confirm that my original plan is the best course for someone in my situation. I will go to my credit union, make a 20%+ down payment and get a 15 year loan.
The chapter on 15 year loans is the most eye-opening thing in the book. It's amazing that even though a 30 year loan (the most common) has a lower monthly payment, after 30 years, you will have paid nearly triple the price of your house, with about 66% being interest to the bank! If that sounds extreme, just multiply your monthly payment by 360 payments, and you will see it for yourself.
The better alternative, IF you can afford slightyly higher monthly payments, is the 15 year loan, where the interest total is less than half of the total payments. Just multiply your montly payment by 180 months to see that total. Also, a 15 year loan goes for about .5% less APR.
If you can put down 20%, then you can also get out of paying the Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), which saves you a few thousand dollars over the course of the loan.
This is a very nice book, that I could not put down. Since I am planning to purchase my first house in the near future, I found this book to be very good at explaining many technical terms that I had heard of, but I did not know what they meant. Now I know much more about mortgages, and I feel more confident about going out and buying a house.
15 It's the best!
I shopped for a number of mortgage books, and bought three, including one published by Barons ("Keys to Mortgage..."), and "How to get the Best Home Loan" by "Bell".
This was the only one worth reading.
16 An excellent book
This is one of the books I bought when I bought my first house. It's a fine reference source if you want to know what all the different mortgage options are (e.g., what's the difference between a fixed-rate mortgage and an adjustable-rate mortgage, what indexes are ARMs tied to, etc.). And the author--Randy Johnson--makes honest recommendations on which mortgages best suit certain typical lifestyles or income scenarios. Also, one of the books great strengths is the discussion of how many discount points to pay. The one thing I found missing, though*, was at least one real-world scenario that you're likely to see used if you visit a mortgage broker in my neck of the woods [Silicon Valley], or other high-priced regions. And that is the use of a 'first' and a 'second' mortgage in a so-called "piggyback financing" or "80-10-10 financing" arrangement which can help you eliminate Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). There's no in-depth discussion of this technique--which is very common--which I found incredible. There's all this advice on getting an ARM tied to the CD index vs. the LIBOR index with a balloon payment if you stay in your house for 3 years instead of 10 years and so on and so forth...but nothing about getting a conforming, fixed-rate, 30-year first mortgage and a smaller second in a technique to reduce your overall payments during the lives of the loans. It's a simple technique, and very worth a detailed analysis, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, like I said, if you want to know esoteric information about mortgages, then this is a worthy book. It helped me, it's just a little shy of a full-fledged 5-star effort.
*Please Note: The review written above pertained to the 1st edition which I initially gave a 4-star rating. The second edition--which I now own also--has effectively covered "Piggyback" loans (i.e, 80-10-10 transactions), which I think propels this book into a solid 5-star work. The second edition also has updated information on shopping for a mortgage on the Internet, and some [though not all] of the examples that show different types of mortgages have had their interest rates brought more into line with present-day (i.e., 2002) rates. This is an excellent book for folks who want to know all about mortgages.
17 Extremely Helpful Book
This book is a must-read for anyone who doesn't have much knowledge of the mortgage process. It's easy to understand, and covers the entire process of shopping for and closing a mortgage. While it does tend to be biased towards dealing with mortgage brokers, anyone can use this book to educate themselves on what they need to know to be a smart mortgage shopper, whether they use a bank or broker. This is the best resource on mortgages for the "common person" (like myself) that I've found, and I've looked at MANY. You can't go wrong buying this book. I wish I'd read it before I bought the first time - I'd have saved a bunch of money and headache.
18 Some interesting detail, but could be better
This book is written by a mortgage industry insider and makes the claim that it will reveal the inner workings or even secrets of the process of obtaining a mortgage. And there is some interesting detail concerning ARMs, lender rate sheets, zero-point loans, etc.
But I think the book lacks organization and consistency. Like a lot of "insider" books it needed to have been read by a lot of "outsiders" for coherency before publishing. The author is not consistent in using the terminology that he defines at the start. He often is not clear about when he is talking about the firm originating your loan or the ultimate buyer of the loan. He creates as much confusion as clarity in his sloppy use of the terms: rebates, points, loan discount points, or loan origination points. Furthermore, for a detail-oriented book I was surprised that section numbers of a standard settlement form, 800, 900, 1000, etc, were not referred to when discussing closing costs.
I would have like to have seen more realistic discussion about the ability of a consumer to force a loan originator to reveal or discuss the profit margin on a loan as the author suggests one do. As far as I know American businesses are not in the habit and in fact resist revealing markups to consumers.
For some readers this book may be just what they are looking for, but I suspect that for most the detail is just not presented in a way that makes it particularly understandable or usable.
19 Very Informative but......
Randy Johnson is very informative and contains alot of useful information...once you understand what he is trying to explain. In my opinion this is not the book to read if you have absolutely NO idea how the mortgage process works and how and what lenders do in that process. If you are a total novice , the terminology Mr. Johnson throws around may sound very cryptic; and his examples might make sense to you if you were either a finance major in college or have some minor experience with terms of finance. In my opinon, the total novice should read another book for the basics before coming to this one . I recommend Eric Tyson's Mortgages For Dummies. It is very concise, clear, easy to understand and concentrates solely on the basics. After you have acquired some basic knowledge of the lending process, then come back to Mr.Johsnon for some serious nuts and bolts tips and strategies. To me, that is the best way to maximize the insider info and stratagies mapped out in Mr. Johnson's book. However, for those of you versed in the lending lingo and who have been around the block a time or two when it comes to the home buying process, this book is definitely a must read. You need look no further for info that really will help you to save money on your next loan or refinance(but I still recommend MFDs , it can compliment or elaborate on alot of the info mentioned in Randy's book). So, all in all, a good read for the novice and for the semi-pro.
20 I Saved $128,000 Dollars
The difference between a NO-NEG-AM at 8.86% and a 30 year Fixed at 7.75% saved me $128,000 on my mortgage. Thanks to Randy's book I knew what questions to ask my lender. I knew the right answer too - NO - no negative amortization loan for me. This book gives you the knowledge you need to make an informed decision. No matter how "nice" and "helpful" your lender's may appear, YOU need to know what they are telling you is accurate. Don't buy a house without knowing what the terms being offered really mean for you. Thanks LoanWolf!!
21 knowlege is power
We weren't comfortable not knowing much about our mortgage options when we bought our new house and we could tell that the salespeople were "banking" on us staying innocent (used car salesman is what comes to mind). There was a lot of mystery we didn't like. We knew we'd be stuck with any mistake we made for many years and we didn't want our biggest expense to be any bigger than necessary. Then I heard about this book. As far as I can tell, no other book on the market contains the type of inside information this book has. We are confident that we have the right mortgage at the right rate after using this book as our guide. We really did save thousands.
22 Excellent! Read this book BEFORE you go loan shopping.
Mortgage broker Randy Johnson reveals the chicanery that exists in the home loan industry, so you won't get bamboozled on this expense of a lifetime. He also shows you how to find the real pros who care about their clients and know how to work the system. It's a real jungle out there in mortgage land. Don't even think about sitting down with a loan officer before you read this book!
23 This is the book most loan officers hope you won't read
I've been in the industry for over seventeen years and I can tell you - this is one of the only mortgage books that really tells it like it is. If your idea of shopping for a mortgage includes picking up the local papaer or yellow pages and calling a bunch of different lenders to ask "what's your rate?", you're in trouble. Read the info on pages 113-118 to see why.
Are you serious about shopping for a mortgage? Are you ready to set aside everything you think you know? Do you want a book that really "hits the nail on the head?" This is the book for you!
Still undecided? How about this? - We like this book so much that we bought 500 copies to give to our mortgage customers.
Do yourself a favor and put this book in your cart.
24 I saved over $800.00 dollars
After reading Randy's book, I felt I had a better handle on the morgage industry. Not only did I save money, but it took only three days for my loan to be underwrited. With key terms described, I could question my broker with confidence and bargain for lower fees.
25 Excellent
I am a banker of 25 years experience. After reading this book twice in 2 days, I am convinced it is as complete and informative a mortgage guide as you will ever see. If you employ the strategies laid out here, there is no question you will save thousands and reach mortgage freedom years sooner. Self education is of paramount importance and this book will teach you well. Remember, there is nothing more intimidating to a banker than an educated consumer.
