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Book Publishers Keep Pace With Housing Turmoil

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By JOANNE KAUFMAN

New York Times News Service

Published: June 16, 2008

When Ralph Roberts, a Detroit real estate broker, learned recently that Ed McMahon was facing foreclosure on his home in Beverly Hills, he called one of the star's representatives to volunteer his help.

"I offered to have our forensic team audit his mortgage file for free," Roberts said. "I also shared with him that I had gone through foreclosure myself."

McMahon has been deluged with similar offers since the news came out that he was $644,000 behind on $4.8 million in home loans, and he will not accept them, said Howard Bragman, his press spokesman.

But unlike, say, the well-wishers who offered to send McMahon religious statues, Roberts at least has the imprimatur of the publishing industry behind his advice. He is the author of "Flipping Houses for Dummies" (2006), "Foreclosure Investing for Dummies" (2007) and "Foreclosure Self-Defense for Dummies" (2008). In August, his latest title - "Foreclosure Myths: 77 Secrets to Saving You Thousands on Distressed Properties" - will hit the shelves.

A few years ago, when the housing market was white-hot, companies that publish how-to books were tripping over themselves to pump out titles about buying property and making money in the real estate business.

Now that the bottom has fallen out of the housing market, the opposite is true: Publishers are updating their backlist titles as well as rushing out newly acquired manuscripts to advise consumers who may have stumbled in the housing game.

So far the most prominent face of the real estate bust is McMahon, who was Johnny Carson's sidekick on "The Tonight Show" and a spokesman for the American Family Publishers' sweepstakes (and yes, jokes are now flying about he now needs to win).

When McMahon told his tale of woe recently on "Larry King Live," it may have been a boon to publishers that aim at the foreclosure market. Among them is Wiley, which puts out the "for Dummies" series and introduced "Home Staging for Dummies" in April.

"We brought that book to market in eight months, and our usual time period is a year," said Diane Steele, a vice president at Wiley. Also on the fast track is a new edition of "Property Management for Dummies," which will come out in August.

But the pendulum has not swung entirely in one direction, since Wiley and other publishers also seek to serve people who have been sitting on the real estate sidelines.

"There will be new landlords," Steele said, "because when people get over the fear curve and recognize that properties are affordable, we think that more and more of them will be going into real estate investing."

Adams Media, another how-to specialist, had great success a few years ago with "The Everything Home Buying Book" and "The Everything Home Selling Book."

"But those books aren't working for us right now," said Karen Cooper, publisher of Adams Media.

Instead, Adams is seeing "modest success" with "The 250 Questions You Should Ask to Avoid Foreclosure," which came out this spring. "The 250 Questions Everyone Should Ask About Buying Foreclosures" is due out in July.

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