Finding the Right Home for What Comes Next
This is my book on getting the loan, finding the house, and buying it without the stress, and it is yours free as a PDF.
Why I wrote this
Buying a house, whether it is your first or your fifth, can be as emotional and as unnerving as it is exciting. It is a large financial decision and a larger personal one, and it arrives with a vocabulary nobody taught you. Too many buyers spend the whole process braced for something to go wrong.
It does not have to go that way. With the right information and the right people around you, buying a house is a sequence of decisions you can see coming. This book exists to show you that sequence before you are standing in it.
What follows is the shape of the book. The full version is free at the bottom of this page.
You already started without me, and that is fine
If you are like most buyers now, you did not begin by calling an agent. You began online. You asked an AI assistant which towns might suit you, compared commute times and cost of living, watched property video, and toured houses from your couch. By the time you reached out to anyone you had opinions and probably a shortlist.
Starting with your own research is a good thing, and it makes the work we do together more focused. What research cannot reach is the rest of it. It cannot negotiate for you. It cannot read a seller's motivation or tell when a deal is about to come apart. It cannot tell you which inspector in town is genuinely thorough. It cannot stand in the yard and notice that the grading around the foundation tells a story the photographs left out, or that the water line on the stone wall is higher than the listing suggests. It cannot build the relationship with a listing agent that gets you a phone call before a house is public.
Choosing who represents you
The first chapter is about hiring, because the person you choose shapes everything after it. Price range has nothing to do with the level of service you should expect, and a buyer who feels like an inconvenience has hired the wrong person.
The chapter lays out what to ask: how well they know the specific towns on your list, what they will tell you about a house that would talk you out of it, how they handle a multiple offer situation, who you reach on a Saturday afternoon, and what they do when an inspection turns up something serious. It also covers buyer representation agreements, which are now standard before showings, and what you are signing when you sign one.
Pre-approval done properly
A pre-qualification and a pre-approval are not the same document and they do not carry the same weight. One is a conversation. The other means a lender has looked at your income, your credit, and your assets, and committed to a number. In a market where a desirable house sees several offers, the strength of that letter is part of your offer.
The chapter covers what the lender needs from you and when, what moves a rate, how much of a down payment makes sense for your situation, what closing costs look like here, and the things that quietly damage an application between pre-approval and closing. Opening a new credit card for the furniture before the loan funds is the classic one.
It also covers who to talk to. A lender who knows coastal Massachusetts will see a flood zone, a private road, a well, or a seasonal property coming and price it correctly. A national call center often will not, and finding that out three weeks before closing is expensive.
Getting clear on what you want
Most buyers can describe what they want in a house. Fewer can say which parts they would give up, and that is the list that matters when a real house with real compromises appears.
The book therefore asks you to separate what you need from what you want, and then asks why about each one. Four bedrooms, or room for everyone at Christmas? Waterfront, or water you can see and get to? A big yard, or less upkeep than you have now? The answers change which houses are worth your Saturday.
If you are buying with a partner, make the lists separately first. Comparing two honest lists at the kitchen table is far better than discovering the disagreement in a house you both already toured.
Touring, and buying near the water with your eyes open
The chapter on going on tour covers how to look at a house rather than walk through it, what to photograph, what to ask the listing agent, and how to compare three houses a week later without them blurring together.
On this coast there is a second layer, and it is the reason I wrote the book rather than handing you a national one. I live on Buzzards Bay. Flood zone and elevation, what an insurance quote is going to look like before you order one, dock and mooring rights and who actually controls them, how the lot drains in a nor'easter, which stretches of shoreline are moving, and what salt and wind do to a house over twenty years are not details. They are the difference between a house you love and a house you resent. My job is to tell you the whole truth early enough that you can still walk away, and to say so plainly when a house is worth every bit of the trouble.
The offer, the inspection, and closing day
Three chapters cover the part that moves fastest. Writing an offer that holds up means more than the number: deposit, timeline, which contingencies stay in, what the seller actually needs, and how an escalation reads to the other side. Disclosures and inspections cover what to read, what to ask about, what is normal in a house of this age on this coast, and the findings that are worth walking away from.
From accepted offer to closing, the book runs through the sequence in order, with the dates that matter and who is responsible for each one. Massachusetts is an attorney state, so the closing itself works differently here than it does in much of the country, and the chapter describes how it works here. The last chapter is the moving list, which is the one my clients tell me they actually printed.
Read the whole book
The full book covers all of the above in more depth, with an appendix of sources you can check yourself.
Download the book as a PDF (6.1 MB). It is a gift, with my best wishes for the purchase of your home. If something in it raises a question about a house you are looking at, call me at (508) 208-1927.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the book cost?
Nothing. It is a free PDF with no obligation attached. I wrote it so that buyers on the South Coast and Cape Cod understand the process before they are in the middle of it.
Is it useful if I am not a first-time buyer?
Yes. The pre-approval, offer, and inspection chapters are written for anyone, and the coastal chapters are the ones experienced buyers tell me they needed most, because flood zone, insurance, and water rights do not come up when you buy inland.
Does it apply outside Massachusetts?
The process chapters describe how a purchase works in Massachusetts, including the attorney closing. I am licensed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and the coastal Rhode Island towns work similarly. Elsewhere the mechanics differ and a local agent should walk you through them.
Who co-authored it?
Krista Mashore, a real estate coach and author. The South Coast and Cape Cod content, the coastal chapters, and the voice are mine.
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