Buying-the

Members of the national home inspection company I belong to have to take yearly tests to keep up to date with expertise. We are allowed to read home inspection books for extra credits so I can tell you that I read at least 3-5 books per year for home inspectors. This book is NOT a home inspection guide for anyone who knows what they're talking about. It's far too limited in it's scope and I did not learn anything from reading it.

I bought this book before buying my first house. The explanations are thorough; the information is eye-opening for a first-time buyer; and excellent illustrations are liberally provided. And I've just found an added use for the book: after owning my house for 2 years, I'm now embarking on renovations. Things I never knew about the house are being unveiled, the structure examined closely. This book is a great resource to go back to; it helps me better understand how my house is put together, why some things that never showed up in the "home inspection" now make sense. For example, the lack of insulation and sound-proofing is something that the home inspection wasn't able to detect. Consequently, I now better understand what to look for in my next house purchase.

Learn how to inspect and evaluate a house, to find both obvious and hidden defects. Lots of photos, drawings, and comprehensive checklists make it easy to spot the clues.

This book is geared towards hunting folks and not the general Golden owning public. I do not recommend it for a general book on the breed. The pictures are nice, though.

This is the best book about Golden Retrievers. I advise this book to all people who have a Golden Retriever If you are not sure,which breed to select to take.I think you must read this book before making making any decisions

Definitely a respectable book for those who are looking to practice limited buyer agency.

Those who are interested in functioning as true buyer agents would be better served by Ray Wilson's book, "Bought, Not Sold" though.

Wilson's book deals with putting client interests ahead of all others, including that of the licensee's own. Harlan and Lyons, while the first on the scene to mass popularize the concept of buyer agency, have done so more as a marketing method, than as a representation first model.

Harlan and Lyons's book is not threatening to the desire of traditional real estate agents to control and influence both sides of the transaction, which explains why they have had success in promoting their book on a wholesale basis.

With them, it's about what is best for the licensee, not the client.

Reviewed by Jay Reifert, Broker/Owner
Excel-Exclusive Buyer Agency

and Director of Operations for REAL-Reform
Real Estate Agency Law-Reform

Gail Lyons is the premier leader in making sense of buyer agency. Her practical approach is based on years of experience. She, with her partner Don Harlan have taught agency seminars nationwide and are respected as being without peer.

Steve Finney, Past President, PA Assoc. of Realtors

A great book with a lot of information. Now the question is where to find an up-to-date version of this comprehensive volume ?

This is a book that should be re-released with updated information. It is the wine connoisseurs indispensible resource.

I bought this guide hoping to get good information on new cars and electronics. The car guide was ok. It gave enough information to help if you are looking for a new or used car.
However, the electronics information was stitled. First, pages 240-260 were not there. There were duplicate 261-280 pages....so buyer beware. Most of the buyers advice given was general at best. My biggest dissapointment was lack of information on any portable electronics. Not a thing. With technology advancements and a huge market for portable entertainment consumer reports bit the dirt with this book.
Their website was no better.

I'll stick with amazon for product review...definetely cheaper.

This is a nicely done book as are all the prior consumer guides. It is inexpensive and full of information.

If you buy a lot of stuff for a house or country home and you need information on different gadgets this is a good book. It has grass cutters and all kinds of other appliances. For myself I think the best section is the car guide. It gives a nice review plus lists possible maintenance problems in older cars all broken down by make. I have used the guide to buy three of my last four cars and have found it to be accurate and valuable. For the price you cannot go wrong.

Having said that this guide is for many household items. Consumers also has a book dedicated just to cars and books on used cars, so if the information is a bit light on say Hondas, check another book from Consumers.

Jack in Toronto

The Buying Guide lists the Hyundai Sante Fe 2001 as a "Used Car to Avoid" on page 179, yet gives consistently better than average mechanical reliability ratings in almost all areas on page 195 for the same year model. So maybe the Hyundai *will* start getting worse ratings later on. I would have *liked* to have read that comment. What good is a reliability chart if it confuses the long term service record?

A little elaboration as to why this car is to be avoided would be good, say, like a single sentence. My wife and I were considering buying this vehicle and it would have been nice if, as I had hoped, the Buyer's Guide could have given clear advice. Apparantly, it is talking out of both sides of its mouth.

I tried to point out this to their website, but of course, they have insulated themselves from their reading public. Well now they can read it here.

It is a good guide and reference. You can have the most useful infomration, data and statistics of thousands of goods in the United States as well as outside the US; concernig availability, features, prices, ...etc.

This book is very focused on purchasing rather than the traditional view of supply chain that incorporates all materials, production and delivery related business processes. Given that narrow focus, it handles the purchasing subject reasonably well, but from a high level. It is a good book for executives without appreciation for the key drivers from across the organization of total life cycle costs. Includes many case studies relating purchasing cost savings based on cross organizational cooperation and viewpoint. If you want a book about 'Supply Chain', pass on this one.

As the title clearly states, this is an "executive guide" to SCM. The authors give a good, broad coverage of the major issues. Like most AMACOM books this is an easy read, but gives one plenty to think about, particularly those new to the subject. The emphasis is on how one could use SCM concepts and chapters end with a short "implementation guide." The coverage is broad and comprehensive enough to give the reader all the topics needed for further detailed investigation. The tables, figures and diagrams are good and useful. For my liking a few case studies/practical examples would help; and some treatment of information technology would have been useful. If you're not an expert already and want to get most all the basics in one place, this book will do it for you.

The information provided in this book is extremely dated and unrealistic. I live in California and I do understand the real estate prices are much higher on average than most parts of the country. However, he uses an example of an average 3BR, 2BA home selling for between $10,000 and $15,000 and continues to use these numbers throughout his book. Somebody tell me where these homes exist? Downtown Baghdad? He gives an example of how to determine the value of a rental income property. He says to take the monthly rental amount and multiply it by 100 to determine the value of the property. His example was $150 monthly rent x 100 = house value of $15,000. I own a rental that rents for $1500. If I used his example $1500 x 100 = $150,000 right? Wrong!!! This same property will sell today for $375,000, which means a buyer's tenants would have to pay $3,750 per month. Gee, do these numbers ad up? You figure!

David Grzesiek has produced in this title, a very detailed, and specific introduction to making money in the real estate business. Avoiding the hyperbole, and excessive claims of other titles in this field, he details methods, and techniques for making profit in single family homes. These are backed up with charts and statistics. The illustrations he uses are not current in the values represented, but he is more interested in conveying understanding of principles, which translate into whatever figures you require with little effort.
Not a make money overnight book, nor a title that neglects detail amidst "positive attitude" bluff, this is a readable, accessible title that I believe would assist people in making a start in a profitable field.

Instead of "How to Afford," the title should be "How to Build." The book offers suggested contracts for construction, price and fee contracts, a materials description sheet, certificate of insurance, etc. It is very thorough in what the log home builder will need to do it themselves, but since I'm not a do-it-yourselfer it really wasn't what I was looking for.

this book was an excellent reference for us in our search for a log home and gave great information on what was necessary to get the job done! give it a try if you have always wanted rustic living at its best!

I bought this book in hopes of understanding better how to buy my first home. It did in fact help with a number of questions I had (though many remain). But what really hurts this book is the author's confusion with math. Several of the formulae in the book are just wrong (like how to calculate your debt-to-income ratio). His comparisons of various loan options are also useless. I'll give two examples: (1) he compares ARMs to fixed-rate mortgages during a historical period during which interest rates dropped like a rock, so it was already clear which would look better; (2) in another example he prefers a 30-year, low point but high rate loan to a 20-year, high point but low rate loan based solely on the monthly payments -- no mention of the relative paydown of the loan's principal. There was a lot of useful info in this book, but since there are so many options in this genre, I would suggest you look elsewhere. I am returning this book tomorrow.

When I purchased this book I had very little knowledge about real estate or lending. After reading the book, successfully buying my first home and now preparing to buy my first rental property, I must say that Mr. Eilers book is truly amazing. I have followed his methods, formulas and tips and tricks to the tee and they ALL work! My realtor even borrowed the book until she could puchase one of her own. I have now purchased and read four real estate books and none were nearly as helpful, complete or as easy to understand as this book. Not only does the book help with real estate, it is also very helpful in the area of finance. Thanks for helping me buy my first and second homes.