10-Step Program for Home Ownership
By Broderick Perkins

Perhaps you've been thinking about buying a home, but have many questions about how such an acquisition will fit your family budget.

A home will put a roof over your head, shelter your income from taxes and provide you with equity income. For the money, you'll get a sense of both personal and financial well-being.

But can you afford the up front costs? Is there a neighborhood for you? Do you have time to care for a home? Are you ready for that nagging buyer's remorse syndrome?

Confused?

You need Ilyce R. Glink's "10 Steps To Home Ownership: A Workbook For First-Time Buyers" (Times Books, $15).

Fitting a niche most realty book publishers overlook, "10 Steps" holds your hand if you aren't quite ready for home ownership, but have lots of legal, financial and credit questions, as well as emotional concerns.

After all, buying a home can be both financially and emotionally draining.

The prequel to Glink's "100 Questions Every First Time Home Buyer Should Ask" (Times Books, $17), "10 Steps" help prepare you to intelligently ask all the right questions.

Assuming you are a renter, as most first-time home buyers are, the book starts smartly with a detailed analysis of the rent-vs.-buy scenario.

Right away it reveals what it does best -- it sweats the details to help you analyze your current situation, whether its where you live, what you can afford or how to choose the right real estate agent when it's time. Each step can feel like a trying, plodding process, but the detailed approach is a necessary and sage one considering your uncertain station in life and the task before you.

Home buying is a serious step and the book uses a tone that carefully doles out useful guidance on affordability, down payment, credit, legal, neighborhood, real estate agent, cost, financing and closing issues.

It's a lot like having an older, wiser, colleague show you the ropes, before you head up the mountain.

While the text is heavy, Glink includes worksheets for homework, side bars of background information, and pointers to the emotional and financial aspects of buying a home -- all to keep the book and you moving toward your goal.

Glink's sober 10 Step program helps you decipher the market, your home-buying ability and how the two interact. It reveals how to adjust your financial and emotional approach to home ownership and it teaches you to know the difference between what you can and can't handle.

It only sounds like a lot to ask from a book.

"10 Steps" finishes, not with the close of escrow, as you'd expect, but with more venerable insight, including the "Top 5 Emotional Mistakes First-Time Buyers Make."

• Falling in love with a home. Silliness. A home isn't going to return your love. Base your purchase on sound financial decisions and honest need.
  
  
• Losing control of your purchase. Assertive agents, busy-body parents, spousal squabbles can put a damper on the deal. Keep focused.
  
  
• Indecision. Do you want to buy a house, travel the world or write a book? Buying a home is a decision-making mine field. If you can't make up your mind about what you want to do with your life, you may not be ready for the demands of buying and owning a home.
  
  
• Underestimating home ownership responsibilities. You won't be in a rental any more, Toto. Mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, estate planning, maintenance, home improvements and a host of other tasks demand more of your attention.
  
  
• Buying too soon. Do the math. Explore neighborhoods. Check the commute. Get financial counseling. It's a Zen thing. If you aren't ready for the journey, you probably won't like the destination.