| Acknowledgments | p. xix |
| About the Authors | p. xxi |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| The Million-Dollar Question | p. 5 |
| Our Homes Are Our Castles | p. 7 |
| An Engine to Prosperity | p. 8 |
| Uncle Sam Wants You to Be a Homeowner | p. 10 |
| The Million-Dollar Question | p. 13 |
| Slow and Steady Wins the Race | p. 15 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 15 |
| Your Home is an Investment | p. 17 |
| Investment Versus Speculation | p. 17 |
| Your Home Dividend | p. 19 |
| The Nifty Fifty | p. 23 |
| Waiting to Buy | p. 24 |
| It Is Hard to Time the Stock Market and Housing Market | p. 24 |
| Taking the Long-Term View | p. 25 |
| Don't Day Trade Homes | p. 26 |
| Your Home Is an Investment | p. 29 |
| A Home to Call Their Own | p. 29 |
| Look at the Whole Picture | p. 30 |
| What Am I Supposed to Look at Again? | p. 31 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 32 |
| Now is a Good Time to Own a Home | p. 33 |
| A Home in Fishers, Indiana | p. 34 |
| Cash is King | p. 38 |
| The Lynch's Southern California Home | p. 43 |
| Your Home Is Not an ATM | p. 46 |
| The Millionaire Paupers | p. 47 |
| Housing as a Portfolio Decision | p. 49 |
| Homes North, South, East, and West | p. 51 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 54 |
| Finding a Home and Closing the Deal | p. 55 |
| How Much Home Can You Afford? | p. 55 |
| How to Choose a Home | p. 59 |
| How to Choose a Realtor | p. 61 |
| Is the Price Right? | p. 63 |
| This House Will Be Sold on November 11 | p. 63 |
| The 6 Percent Fortress | p. 64 |
| Moving Merchandise | p. 67 |
| Happy Clients | p. 69 |
| The Closer | p. 70 |
| The Times They Are a Changing | p. 70 |
| Match This | p. 72 |
| Realtors: Can't Live With Them or Without Them | p. 72 |
| Negotiating Boldly | p. 74 |
| Good Things Come to Those Who Wait | p. 75 |
| Regression to the Mean | p. 76 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 78 |
| Debt Doesn't Have to Be a Four-Letter Word | p. 79 |
| Using Loans to Live Beyond Your Means | p. 80 |
| How to Invest Like Warren Buffett | p. 81 |
| Loans Create Leverage | p. 82 |
| Leverage + Compounding = Wow! | p. 84 |
| Loan Payments | p. 85 |
| The Unpaid Balance | p. 85 |
| Comparing Loans: The Total-Payments Error | p. 87 |
| The Right Way to Think About Loans | p. 88 |
| Bad News, You Won the Lottery | p. 89 |
| Can You Make Money Borrowing at 12 Percent to Invest at 7 Percent? | p. 90 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 91 |
| Choosing the Right Mortgage | p. 93 |
| Finding a Lender | p. 93 |
| Getting Preapproved | p. 95 |
| Saving for Your Down Payment | p. 97 |
| Mortgage Terms | p. 101 |
| Mortgage Rates | p. 102 |
| Anchoring | p. 103 |
| Mortgage Points | p. 107 |
| Sure, I'll Lend You Money | p. 109 |
| 30-Years, 15-Years, or? | p. 109 |
| Adjustable Rate Loans | p. 110 |
| Creative Financing | p. 113 |
| Buying a House with Creative Financing | p. 114 |
| Biweekly Mortgages | p. 115 |
| Graduated Payment Loans | p. 116 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 119 |
| Refinancing and Home Equity Loans | p. 121 |
| Heads You Win, Tails I Lose | p. 121 |
| Prepayment Penalties | p. 123 |
| Does Refinancing Pay? | p. 123 |
| The Break-Even Refinancing Rate | p. 124 |
| Wake Up, Little Susie | p. 126 |
| The Time Value of What? | p. 126 |
| Mental Accounting | p. 128 |
| You Can Sell Your Home Without Selling Your Home | p. 129 |
| Say No to Credit-Card Debt | p. 130 |
| One Way to Pay for College | p. 131 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 132 |
| Remodeling | p. 133 |
| Sunk Costs | p. 133 |
| Does Remodeling Pay for Itself? | p. 135 |
| Remodel Sooner, Not Later | p. 139 |
| Make It Bigger, Not Better | p. 140 |
| What's a Remodeling Project Really Worth? | p. 141 |
| Leaky Windows | p. 144 |
| I'd Rather Do It Myself | p. 145 |
| Paying By the Job or By the Hour? | p. 147 |
| The Big Job in Waltham | p. 147 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 148 |
| Rental Properties and Vacation Homes | p. 151 |
| You Used to Pay the Landlord, Now You Are the Landlord | p. 151 |
| Adverse Selection | p. 152 |
| Moral Hazard | p. 152 |
| Long-Distance Landlords | p. 154 |
| Ah, the Tax Code | p. 156 |
| Fishers, Indiana, Again | p. 156 |
| If I Bought It, It Must be Worth the Price I Paid | p. 160 |
| A Home with Two Rentals | p. 161 |
| Those Darn Taxes | p. 162 |
| The Investment Value of a Vacation Home | p. 163 |
| The Bi-Coastal Renkens | p. 165 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 166 |
| Letting Your Home Take Care of You | p. 167 |
| HRAs | p. 167 |
| Life Is a Journey: From Porterville and Indio to Thatcher | p. 170 |
| Should You Raid Your IRA to Pay Off Your Mortgage? | p. 171 |
| Reverse Annuity Mortgages | p. 173 |
| Grandma Ford | p. 173 |
| What Do I Owe You? | p. 175 |
| RAMed by a RAM? | p. 176 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 177 |
| Selling Your Home | p. 179 |
| Home Dividends, Again | p. 180 |
| Curb Appeal | p. 181 |
| Clean It Up! | p. 182 |
| Pictures on the Wall | p. 183 |
| Loss Aversion | p. 184 |
| Waiting for the Right Price | p. 186 |
| Our Price Is Firm, But the Terms Are Negotiable | p. 187 |
| The Bottom Line | p. 187 |
| Afterword | p. 189 |
| An Owner-Occupied Home in Fishers, Indiana | p. 191 |
| A Rental Home in Fishers, Indiana | p. 195 |
| Your Home | p. 199 |
| Index | p. 205 |