From Elizabeth Weintraub,
Your Guide to Home Buying / Selling.
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If you're a potential single woman home buyer who is sitting on the fence, Jennifer Musselman's book, Own It: the UPS and DOWNS of Homebuying for Women Who Go It Alone, will help you to make that decision to buy with confidence.

Musselman writes in a breezy, fun style, with the voice of a woman who has been there and done that. She starts by talking about the real fears facing women who venture into home ownership without a partner or spouse, covering such issues as:

• Will owning your own home hurt your chances of finding a mate because couples often buy their first home together?

• Are men intimidated or put off by women who don't need them?

• Will men find you less sexy if you have equity in a home?

The answer, of course, is no, but that doesn't mean some women don't carry around those fears and nurture them. And even if there are some men who might be turned off by successful, intelligent and beautiful women who own their own homes, those aren't men you'd truly consider anyway, so they don't matter.

What does matter is that women who feel compelled to purchase a home should disregard naysayers and instead act on that urge. Live your life the way you want to live it. Musselman's message is two-fold: Don't sacrifice your dream by waiting for Mr. McDreamy to come along, and home buying is empowering.

The Financial Details of Home Buying

As Musselman points out, one of her home buying reasons was to keep more of her take-home pay and stop giving a big chunk of it to Uncle Sam. She covers ways to come up with a down payment, setting aside extra to pay taxes and insurance and how to negotiate lower loan fees.

Finding Your Perfect Home

Everybody knows that location, location, location is important, but Musselman goes a step further by suggesting buyers consider their chosen neighborhood's value down the road. What's hot today might not be hot five years from now. Moreover, is hot what you really want?

The book covers how to put together a needs and wants list. Then, how to separate the wants from your "must haves," and even more importantly, how to recognize that perfect home when you find it. Compromise plays a huge role in finding a home.

Personal safety is paramount for many women, and buying a home can heighten those concerns. Musselman offers safety tips for women home buyers beyond simply looking for a home in a low-crime area. She shares a frightening experience of how she was lured by a false sense of security and didn't take necessary precautions to prevent an intruder from entering her home.

The Meat of Home Buying

Musselman includes great chapters on how to check your credit, understand your FICO score, find financing, a great REALTOR® and the perfect home. She cautions against jumping on a home the moment you find it because she gathered opinions, went back for the open house and decided to sleep on it.

While it's good that a take-your-time strategy worked for her, most first-time home buyers find it's smarter to act quickly when they find that perfect home or somebody else will snatch it away while they are "sleeping on it."

The Bottom Line

The chapters in Own It are word plays on terms for committing to Mr. Right. To Musselman, and to many women, I imagine, buying a home is a lot like getting married. The real difference, of course, is the fact that you may someday come to face-to-face with the fact that you and your home need to part. You may decide to upgrade. Not much different, I'd say, than trading in your spouse for a younger version.

Conclusion

I rate this book a seven on a scale of one to ten. I'd give it a higher rating but it's not really a "how to" than it is a young professional woman's first-hand experience. Your experience could be different. But it's entertaining, a delightful read and, if you pick up one idea you never before considered that turns out to be useful to you, you got your money's worth.

Own It! The UPS and DOWNS of Homebuying for Women Who Go It Alone

_{Own IT, © 2008 by Jennifer Musselman, Published by Seal Press, paperback, 171 pages.}