I have received Mind Your Own Mortgage: The Wise Homeowner's Guide to Choosing, Managing, and Paying Off Your Mortgage by Robert J. Bernabe from the publisher in a moment I was actually preparing myself to refinance, probably it was the best moment the book could have come as it was a real eye opener.
The book is divided in four sections: Get a grip on it, shop for it, manage it and finish it.
The first section it is an introduction of the book and explains in general how the mortgage market works. The second section goes deeply into explaining all the shopping process and everything involved in the total cost of a mortgage, provides charts and explains how to compare prices in the same way as you would if you were buying a gallon of gas. The third and forth part are shorter and deals with the payment of your mortgage.
The book is very informative and well written, although this is not an easy subject at least for me. The idea of having your own charts/ tables to compare different prices provided by the lenders was completely new to me as we always tend to listen to the sales pitch and make some sense of it. I doubt that the tables will be valid for the UK market or any other market outside the United States; however it is an interesting idea and inspires you to find a way to adapt it to your own market and situation.
In general the principles and basic rules still apply wherever you are: shop based on total cost versus payments, try to put money aside to “overpay” each month (reducing the length of your mortgage and saving thousands of dollars in the long run), live within your means.
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