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Mortgage Free!: Innovative Strategies for Debt-Free Home Ownership, 2nd Edition Paperback – Illustrated, 15 Nov. 2008

by Robert L. Roy (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
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mort•gage (mor´-gij)
n. from Old French morgage, mort gage, literally “death pledge”

As a wave of foreclosures sweeps the country, many people are giving up hope for owning a home of their own. They have good reason to turn their backs on the banks, but not on their dreams. In this revised edition of Mortgage Free!, Rob Roy offers a series of escape routes from enslavement to financial institutions, underscored by true stories of intrepid homeowners who have put their principles into action.

From back-to-the-land homesteads to country homes, here is a complete guide to strategies that allow you to own your land and home, free and clear, without the bank. Included is detailed advice about:

  • Clarifying and simplifying your notions of what’s necessary
  • Finding land that you love and can afford
  • Taking control of the house-building process, for the sake of sanity and pleasure
  • Learning to take a long-term perspective on your family’s crucial economic decisions, avoiding debt and modern-day serfdom
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  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Chelsea Green Publishing Co
  4. Publication date
    15 Nov. 2008
  5. Dimensions
    15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    1603580654
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1603580656
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Product description

Review

"Yes! It's about time somebody put together a how-to book for shedding those chains of a 30-year mortgage. We don't have to slump through life in bondage. We can live well AND have our freedom, and Rob Roy shows us how in this entertaining, detailed, and well-illustrated book."--Janet Luhrs, author of The Simple Living Guide

About the Author

Rob Roy knows what it means to live mortgage free. As director of Earthwood Building School since 1981, he has instructed many in the arts of natural building, and renewable energy. He is also the author of Earth-Sheltered Houses, Cordwood Building, Timber Framing for the Rest of Us, The Sauna, and Stone Circles. Rob and his family live in West Chazy, New York. You can learn more about Earthwood Building School at www.cordwoodmasonry.com.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chelsea Green Publishing Co; Revised and updated second edition (15 Nov. 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1603580654
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1603580656
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

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Rob Roy

Rob Roy

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Rob Roy has been building, researching and teaching about cordwood masonry for four decades. Widely recognized as a world leading authority on cordwood construction, Rob started Earthwood Building School in 1981 to train builders in the latest cordwood building methods. He has authored and edited a dozen books on alternative and natural building including the first edition of Cordwood Building, Timber Framing for the Rest of Us and Earth-Sheltered Houses. Rob has also presented four videos, including two about cordwood masonry and has taught cordwood masonry all over the world. Rob lives in Chazy, NY

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  • Leif
    5.0 out of 5 stars Change your mindset, change your future possibilities.
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 December 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Well written book, although needs a third update, last one was 11-12 years ago. Good to see others strategies and can use multiple ideas from it, even if his book is nowhere near as good for building underground as Mike Oehler’s definitive $50 And Up book is. Roy makes a lot of sense to me overall, even with making some errors that Oehler’s book solved. I plan to get some of his books on cordwood building too, and may see about building a cordwood sauna when we get our land.
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  • Teacher Mikal
    5.0 out of 5 stars DIY: for real.
    Reviewed in the United States on 7 March 2009
    Verified Purchase
    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.
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  • Tsch
    4.0 out of 5 stars Creative ways to raise money for land and support yourself while developing. Helps you create a budget with lower/upper limits!
    Reviewed in the United States on 10 June 2018
    Verified Purchase
    This book suggests various ways to support yourself and/or raise a "grubstake" (the money for purchasing or making the down payment on your land plus enough improvements so you can start living on it). Some of the ideas are extremely creative (like Caretaking other properties as a way to live for free or even make money while visiting the area you want to live). I could have done with a little more meat in that way, like the ways to make a homestead self-supporting (books on homesteading or small-scale farming will guide you better in that matter).

    Rob Roy also gives example charts/checklists you can use to crystalize your goals, set a budget, estimate living expenses for the first year, and raise money. Everyone does this different, but I found his chart for the land-purchase budget better than others because he had a lowball, midrange, and possible column for each item (because you just know that you may have to settle for X when what you hope for is Y or Z, and you should honestly evaluate your situation and abilities). This also ties into, okay, but I NEED "X", so how can I raise the money to afford it?

    I bought this book mainly because I was blown away by "The $50 and Up Underground House Book." "Mortgage Free!" does not disappoint, but it's not a mega-manual, either. It is an essential part of my plan to attain an independent lifestyle!
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  • libra-write
    5.0 out of 5 stars Many ideas !!
    Reviewed in the United States on 8 April 2011
    Verified Purchase
    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.
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  • Todd S.
    3.0 out of 5 stars This was the swift kick in the rear end I needed so badly. (updated 2 yrs later)
    Reviewed in the United States on 9 November 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Update 2 years after reading the book...

    The fact that I haven't forgotten about this book or its principles 2 years later is a testament to the author's ability to convey information and some of the information contained within. However after 4 years of looking for cheap land, going under contract twice, and now trying to actually get something built, it has never been more clear just how much of the book is pure fantasy in this day and age and for that reason I knocked it down a couple of stars.

    The book puts you in the right frame of mind to adjust your lifestyle if you are committed to saving money and eventually stop feeding the bankster pigs (my words). I recommend people read it for that reason. As I suspected in my original review (below), the expenses involved in LEGALLY building anew just don't amount to savings. I have looked at properties literally all over the country, and land outside of planned communities (subdivisions) is expensive. If it's not, there's always a really, really, really good reason for it.

    Because I need to be somewhat near civilization to make a living, and not confident in my abilities to live merely off the land completely off the grid away from everyone and everything, I settled on one measly acre 40 miles outside the urban core with the goal of building a decent enough cabin legally for under $100k. Despite being "out in the country", the building codes are the same as anywhere else in the state and zoning regulations look like they were adopted from some real swanky area although this is still Georgia I'm talking about, how bad can it be?

    The solution offered for going mortgage free, is essentially to live in a shack. Scavenge for materials and supplies like a pauper and live in a shack that you have built yourself, or more accurately, a hobbit hole in the ground. I'm not opposed to doing either of those things and commend anyone who has. There's certainly a growing movement in this country towards going mortgage free and living in tiny houses et cetera. But that's really all just fantasy. 100%, heartbreaking fantasy.

    Doing things legally, as the book suggests everyone should do, in order to get a "CO", or certificate of occupancy, there are a lot of things that need to be done whether you want to do them or not, that are very expensive and I recently got done adding up all of those things and it came to $40-45,000 which does not even include the actual building envelope of the cabin nor the land itself.

    Before you read this book, lets have a little reality check. When the minimum square footage you can legally build is 1800, the permit, inspections and impact fees come to around $4,000. Make no mistake, the zoning and permitting and codes are all very much a part of the machine. Whether you need 1,800 square feet or not, 1,800 square feet you must build. That also not only means you have to pay to heat and cool 1,800 square feet once you've built it, you have to finish it out to minimum standards in order to get the CO. And then you have to pay property taxes on it!!!! And amongst the things that are required is a traditional HVAC system. Even if you plan to use a wood stove or space heater or just bundle up in 16 layers of blankets, you have to install an HVAC system in my state and you have to have it installed to code. No ifs, ands or buts.

    Also required... electricity, including all the wiring and outlets and everything to every room of the house. You don't plan on using any grid supplied electricity? Well tough luck. If you want your CO, you must have electricity. Since I am not comfortable doing my own wiring nor do I have time to learn it and still pay for everything plus build the place, there goes another several thousand dollars to an electrical contractor. Also required... plumbing. And plumbing is required before you can even get a permit to build the structure. You need to put in your septic and well or connect to the municipal source. Even if you plan to use a porta potty or just use the toilets at work and not even go to the bathroom while you're at home, if you want your CO, you need to have plumbing. To code. Yes, even in Georgia, which comes as a big surprise even to me. In order to comply with the building code adopted statewide, you must also completely sheetrock all of the interior walls and ceilings or use an acceptable alternative. Sheetrock is cheap but I don't like it and when I inquired about alternatives, the building inspector couldn't think of any. So it's looking more and more like a contractor-built-house with all the same expenses at this point.

    There's tons of other things, right down to the surveys and silt fencing that all add up to a great deal of money and paying as you go is not really an option. You have to build it all in a year or you need to get another building permit. I'll only touch on one more of the major concepts of building your own place that was a major component of the book as well as a strategy that, for years, has been used by people building their own homes while they saved up and while living on their land.... "The Temporary Structure."
    Temporary structures, or "accessory buildings" as they are legally known as here are not allowed to be built before you have obtained your CO on your primary structure. So there you have it. If you want to follow the law here, and you probably better if you plan on have any utilities because the first meter read you get, the building department is going to find out all about what you've constructed, then no temporary structure for you. Period. End of story.

    Building your own small home free and clear with the security and piece of mind of not having the bankster pigs ever take that away from you if you're down on your luck is a dream that's appealing to many. But it's a dream that for most of us, is never going to come true. At least not legally. But all is not lost. You can still be free from a mortgage.

    As I suspected 2 years ago, and this continues to be true to this day, there are distressed properties in cities across America where homes can be purchased for far less than what they cost to build. Even, as it turns out, new construction homes. They may not be out in the country. They may not be in the best areas, and they probably don't look like a cabin. But if you want to be free from a mortgage and do something that is truly environmentally friendly, rather than cut down a bunch of trees and build a new place, be an urban pioneer and buy something that is already standing. In the time since I have read this book I have managed to save up some money even though that's hard to do with a mortgage and single income but if I took that money and refinanced my mortgage and paid down a some of the principal, I'd be able to save up even more money to pay off the remainder in a reasonable time frame and ultimately, as much as I see my neighborhood deteriorating due to renters and want out really bad, I still want to be mortgage free even more and it's likely that I will scrap my construction plans and do exactly that.

    At least in this house, I've managed to drastically reduce the energy bills through using a whole house fan and space heaters. By the way, in case you were wondering, you can forget about getting an owner-builder loan. Unless you're a general contractor by trade, owner-builder loans are a page in history. Not that you'd want one... gotta get rid of the mortgage, remember? Even if you did manage to get a construction loan, the structure still has to appraise. In other words, it has to be like every other contractor-built house. No strawbale, no cordwood, no earth shelter (good luck actually finding a real live one of those by the way). I even had one lender tell me the house won't appraise if it was built on a post & pier foundation.

    The book mentions timber frame construction. I've always been a big fan of that. In reality though, back down here out of the clouds, you'll be hard pressed to find anything other than strawbales and cordwood that is cheaper than 2x lumber. Plus those timber frames are largely cosmetic nowadays. Timberframes are enclosed with something called SIPS which are extremely expensive. You can build a home entirely with SIPs without the timberframe and save a lot of money.... but it'll still be a lot more expensive than stick-built conventional construction.

    If you haven't had enough of my ramblings yet...
    ---- My original review is below ----

    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.
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