Customer Reviews

Mortgage Free!, Second Edition: Innovative Strategies for Debt-Free Home Ownership

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Well, I just finished Mortgage Free! and I'm pumped more than ever to build that timber frame in the mountains. I couldn't be a more accurate target audience for author Rob Roy. I'm a late twenties art teacher and woodworker (and ex-carpenter/blacksmith) that perpetually annoys my friends and family with H.D. Thoreau, Wendell Berry, Neil Postman, and E.F. Schumacher passages. I'm married, have a decent "grubstake" (savings for land and house) no children, and limitless energy.

This book is probably the first real estate/building/economic philosophy book that I've read in my short years that truly aligns with my own thinking. It has nothing to do with the TV nonsense of flipping homes, buying and selling foreclosures or short sales to get rich, or how to be a landlord in the city. Its greatest merit is the argument that we can live this life unchained to the typical work-a-day existence of mortgages, corporate ladder climbing and consumer/energy gluttony. This very merit, although a proven path even ten years ago, is untested in our current lousy and price-bloated economy. Roy's main thrust is that we should avoid the death pledge of the mortgage at pretty much any cost-and here I agree. What this book really needs though, (indeed lacks) for me, are tangible case studies and numbers that come even close to the typical prices of anywhere else except the Upstate NY area where the author is familiar. I live in California, but I've also lived in Chicago and Denver. Prices in the West are often ten times the updated prices you find in Mortgage Free! The advantages that couples in the late 60s and early 70s had with open space, low prices, and inheritances, are unknown to me. For the first five years of my working life I made nearly the same wage as my father twenty five years before at the same age... except that everything costs ten, twenty times the prices of his day and the joke of unlimited growth of property values is coming to a rude end.

Despite these drawbacks, Mortgage Free! is well worth the money for its honest and sensible approach, clarity and style of the writing, and truthful, enlightened position on energy and economy. My determination to make it to those green mountain pastures in the Sierra Nevada has much deeper roots than this book alone...(and so should yours). So, you should buy Mortgage Free!, read it, and put its good message to work. Thanks Rob.

This book is Wonderful in Many many respects and I Highly recommend it because to me the subject matter is indispensable. He's complete, thorough, etc. The one thing he is Not is concise. Great, great material and very well covered - but be prepared for a read that is occasionally tedious. I read through it anyway :) Also, be prepared for the discussion of a few other odd topics. He talks about salary free living, college, etc. Most of it's logical; such as going to college only if you have a career picked and must have the degree for it. College is Wonderful - but if you don't know what to do, wait. This is the sort of thing that he spends long paragraphs on. Again - good read; totally worthwhile. Just be prepared. His information is solid and useful. He covers the whole process and what to expect as you go. He discusses adaptations for individuals. He even helps you decide if it's right for you at all, and openly admits that in some situations it's not. In most situations it is the best way to go about home ownership - but if you're 2years from retirement and finishing your mortgage at the same time... or if you have a spouse that will leave if you live in a temporary shelter for a couple years while you build, etc. He gives reasonable ways to decide if this fits you and your family, and if so how to make the adaptations needed to fit it to your life. Good luck :)

When five or six or even more figures in debt, getting out of it seems impossible. "Mortgage Free!: Innovative Strategies for Debt-Free Home Ownership" is a guide to breaking free of the bank's grasp on one's finances, and conquering a plaguing mortgage that all too often dominates an American's life. Rob Roy has a huge selection of tips and advice for digging one's way out of debt, outlining what's truly necessary in one's life, smart shopping in the homeowner's market, planning for the long term, and so much more. Anyone plotting buying a home needs "Mortgage Free!".

If you're looking at the cover art for this book you're probably thinking this contains information on personal finance and some creative lending practices and to a certain extent it does, but the main emphasis is on low cost building and a sort of homesteading lifestyle. I found this book through looking at the author's other books on construction so I knew this going into it.

For years now, we've all seen "green" homes shown on the do-it-yourself TV networks, which obviously cost millions of dollars to build. So for one, it's a refreshing to see someone address truly green homes that are extremely economical to build even if they are far more basic and have fewer amenities.

You're also probably wondering how relevant this information still is after the housing and foreclosure crisis. This book was revised in 2008 but as I write this review, it's November 2011 and something like 2,000 homes go into foreclosure every day in this country. The book doesn't discuss the opportunities of foreclosures, short sales and the over supply of housing in general. In my opinion, if you're just looking for a decent home in the city or suburbs and you don't want to have to go through the incredibly difficult process of buying land and building (which is what the book offers up as a means of getting a mortgage free house) and if you have some money saved up, this is the simplest and easiest way to reach that goal. In my metropolitan area there are nice homes in decent neighborhoods that can be bought for less than it costs to build a low cost shelter or for that matter, even less than the vacant land to build it on.

In my circumstance, I'm actually looking more for acreage and a home that is designed so that it is much more energy efficient than traditional houses normally are and is extremely low maintenance. So this book gives me a lot of useful information on reaching my goal. Of course first and foremost, I do want more than anything to be mortgage free and so I'm struggling with the decision of saving up and taking the easy route and buy a some cheaper foreclosed property or spend more money and take a lot more time going the route of finding land and building.

Most people like myself are mortgaged to the hilt and saving money is difficult because there's so little left at the end of the month. The book teaches strategies for saving money, living very frugally, scavenging for materials, and building a somewhat primitive structure for very little money on rural land.

I have a few complaints though. It's pretty clear the author hasn't purchased land in a while or it demonstrates that buying land in the northeast is much different than the southeast. Because here, even though home values continue to go down, land values haven't fallen at the same rate. In my part of the country, land is very expensive, even still. Even though the housing developments have slowed to a trickle, custom homes are still being built on county lots, and lots of people retire down in the warmer climates and want to build their dream home. So you're lucky if you can even find small parcels to build on unless you want to be totally in the middle of nowhere and very far away from anything. And moving to a strange new place in the middle of nowhere and expecting to find all sorts of like-minded people to help you, as the book teaches as a strategy, is a little unrealistic- I think.

And while I don't think his material costs are that far off, little has been said about water, sewage and access. Shallow wells just aren't realistic for most of us. $5,000 to dig a 250 foot well, $5,000 for a septic system, $5,000 to clear trees and put in a dirt road and basic grading, $3,500 on plans and permits, $1,000 in gas going back and forth to the property. That's nearly $20k right off the top. A lot of detail about different methods of building homes but not much about the bubble-bursting nitty gritty of preparing a land for a home. And that's to say nothing of architects and permits.

That brings me to my next nitpick. Plans. In modern days, building departments want an real blueprints and an engineer stamp on it. Sure you might be able to learn basic drafting. But there's so many building codes to be familiar with that you're probably going to need to hire someone with that expertise or you may find yourself having to waste time and money undoing a lot of hard work. Not until the very last chapter was there any mention of architects. And even then, it was an anecdote told by a owner-builder that had to overcome the challenge of finding an engineer themselves.

In the municipality I'd like to build, there isn't a minimum size that houses have to be but there is a minimum room size. Kitchens have to be something like 70 square feet. Living rooms 125 square feet. And so on and so on. The book consistently advises the reader to follow all local laws and doesn't advise bypassing inspections. What it does do, is tell you to learn the building codes yourself so you can make sure your home is compliant.

So let's see if I got this straight. I should go to a construction school or be an apprentice to learn how to build a house. I should learn all the building codes. I should learn how to be an architect. I should learn how to be an electrician and plumber so I can do all the wiring and plumbing to code. I should dig my own well. I should learn all the ins and outs of thermal mass and designing an energy efficient layout. I should learn how to grow all my own food, cut my own firewood, homeschool my children, scavenge for all the building materials, THEN find time to do all the laundry by hand,(no engery consuming modern appliances), and then... according to appendix I, I should definitely keep my day job. Rrrright. Piece of cake.

In summary, it's thoroughly written and has excellent tips and I'd recommend it to anyone that wants to be mortgage free. Building a house is a monumental undertaking but this book offers a lot of motivation to do that and it helps put you in the mindset you'll need to change your lifestyle from a "consumer" to a "conserver." But if you just want to be mortgage free and have about $50k saved up, you can probably find a number of houses in move-in condition ready for you to buy today and own totally free and clear. In any case, a worthwhile read. Just be careful because if you do go forward with building, there are a lot of expenses you will likely incur that were not mentioned in the book in any great detail. You could find yourself living in a shed (temporary shelter) for 9 years as did one family in chapter 7.

This is the closest book I've found to a manual on "dirt cheap" shelter. It is extensive but aimed at those with more than $10k-$30k. It does not provide much in terms of ways around this high cash barrier, and admits defeat in the face of encroaching building codes. Does not deal with salvage/innovation/squatter culture strategies at the bottom-feeder level, but openly admits that this is beyond the scope of the work at hand. Does not cover permaculture cooperative strategies. Places shelter in direct opposition to college and debt. Good stories throughout, mostly based on good fortune or a starting position of income above poverty level... not much innovative "bootstrapping" here.

This book contains some very interesting information on becoming an owner-builder. The advice herein acknowledges that this book cannot provide detailed construction information and refers the reader to other in-depth books. While the advice is primarily about the problems associated with building a house, the author also goes off on tangents that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. This can become annoying and seems to take up multiple pages in which the author could instead have elaborated more on some aspect of land-buying or home-building. All in all, this is an interesting read, even though I'm not sure that some of the projects built in the 1970's could be built today, considering modern zoning.

This is such an inspiring book!

Me and my partner have both jobs with very irregular and usually fairly low income, and right now it looks pretty much impossible for us to buy a house the "usual" way - paying mortage, I mean.
However, this book has reinforced my point of view that it IS somehow possible to eventually build our dream house, we are not doomed to like in a tiny flat just because we chose to do the job we love most!
We can change that, and this book offers a good amount of tips and tools that will hopefuly help us with it. It offers a "plan" to those who really don't know where to start (you can change that plan to your likings, of course, but it's a great starting point).

The prices and maths done in this book were not very helpful to us, for one thing because they're (as the author states himself) prices from quite a few years ago, and for another thing, well, we live in Spain, so the cost of real estate in the US are not of much help to us here. But this is not the book's fault.

Anyway, I really loved it and I hope to put some of the tips into practice someday!

I like to book because of the many ideas it has. Being on a somewhat low income, I purchased it to consider my options. It's a great book to have for anyone interested in an alternative to having a big mortgage.

It took me a good while to finish this book. I hung on to every word. What a smart man Rob Roy is. I own all of his books and his dvd. If you wont to learn how to stay out of the 30 year throw your money away mortgage,this is your ticket and I realy mean that. I am a new man,now that I have this book. Yes, I am mortgage free and I thank God for that and Rob helped also. I am saveing up my grubstake for my second mortgage free home. Just do as Rob says and you will live a better life. My life and wallet are doing better. I plan to buy more copies of this book as gifts. I wont to try to help others also.

Unfortunately we do not educate our children to be conservationists. Most of them grow up to be consumers, indebted to the banks all their lives through mortgages, car loans, credit cards etc. This book is a must read for everyone and it should be required in high school as part of the curriculum,