Do not underestimate the cost of home repairs when making a home-buying decision. My mortgage is $300 less than my rent was, and $500 of it is principal. So in theory I'm netting $800 per month. Inspection showed some older appliances so we asked for a warrantee and I figured we'd be covered. But how wrong I was. We've owned for 4 months:
- New floors $10k whole house. (Turns out the previous owner was using wall plugs to mask a horrific dog smell stained into his carpets)
- Baby's room was 4-6degrees colder than the room downstairs with a thermostat. Energy upgrades ran us $4k.
- Personally spent 1.5k on various projects of DIY so far.
- Gutters haven't been cleaned apparently in years. The soffets behind them are rotting out and must be replaced. $2k.
- Electric panel was a fire hazard and had to be replaced. $2.5k.
By the time we hit the 1yr mark we will easily have sunk 20k into this house, very little of which will increase the value. The house was cheaper than others on the market and now I know why. When you include all the fees of buying and selling, I can easily see how it takes 5-6 years for home ownership to really pay off financially.
Submitted January 10, 2022 at 09:24AM by Aeondor https://ift.tt/3qdFuiW
