Book: All You Need To Know ABout Buying & Selling Your Home

Reviewed by Ruth McIntosh on behalf of Good Returns Bookstore

The name Yardney will be well known to many property investors. Michael Yardney was a keynote speaker at the NZPIF Conference 2007. However, this really is not a book aimed at property investors per se. The target audience instead is someone inexperienced in the property market – including first home buyers and people selling their first home. The book would also be very suitable for anyone who hasn’t bought or sold a house for a number of years.

Michael and Pamela Yardney are Australians and this book is written for the Australian market. However, don’t let this put you off. The vast majority of the content also applies to New Zealand.

I found this book really well written, informative and easy to read. It is written in a very easy to understand and down to earth style. The layout is also exceptionally good. There is lots of white space. Each chapter includes personalised comments from both Michael and Pamela, which are shown in shaded text boxes. This is a nice touch, which works really well. Shown in the same shaded text boxes, there are also some relevant examples scattered throughout that are good at making things real for the reader. At the end of each chapter is a summary ‘what have you learnt from this chapter?’ This is a good reinforcement technique.

The book is divided into two sections. The first two thirds of the book covers the home buying process, while the remainder of the book is devoted to the home selling process. Of course if you are doing either it would be advisable to read both sections of the book so that you understand the whole process. Most of the time if a person is selling their current home they are also intending to buy a new home. However, even first home buyers would benefit from reading the chapters on selling to gain an appreciation from the vendor’s view point.

The chapters on buying your own home cover the whole process from the start to finally getting the keys to your castle. There is a chapter, for example, on financing options. This doesn’t cover anything complex, but it does spell out the basics in a clear easy to follow way. There are also chapters to help the reader decide what sort of home they should be looking for, should they consider building, or a house that needs improvements? The next chapters look at the actual negotiating process and buying via an auction. Then there are chapters on the legal process and the settlement process.

Chapter 15 summarises the first section into a short chapter entitled 19 ways to get into your new home sooner. This is a good idea, because many readers will have been introduced to lots of new ideas by this stage of the book, and bringing it all together in one chapter will help the reader focus on the key points, that they should be doing, if they are actually going to go out there and buy a house, or start saving for a deposit.

The last third of the book, on selling your home, is not aimed at someone who wants to market and sell their house privately. In fact the authors strongly recommend against this (p 150), as they believe that you are unlikely to get as high a price or attract as many potential buyers. Instead this section of the book includes chapters on choosing a real estate agent. There is a good chapter on physically preparing your home for sale. Again there is nothing too complicated in this, but a lot of common sense. More along the line of making sure everything is clean and tidy…

There is information on when you should consider, for example, selling your home by auction. There is also, just like in the buyer’s section, a chapter on negotiating and a chapter on settlement day.

The last chapter provides details of links to subscribe to a free fortnightly property e-magazine, and additional free bonuses, such as a budget planner and e-books that can be downloaded.

Despite the fact that the book is not targeted at property investors there are property investors who would benefit from reading it. Perhaps, for example, you are considering selling one of the rental properties you own. If so, it is highly likely that you will find some relevant tips that you may not have previously considered. I would definitely recommend this book as an addition to your family library or perhaps as a present for someone that you know who is thinking about buying their own home. I also personally now want to read Michael Yardney’s earlier book How to Grow a Multi Million Dollar Property Portfolio – in your spare time.

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