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The real cost of owning a home

ericturner.dev

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Re: The real cost of owning a home

#2

Post by bell-cot »

> You can save a lot of money in maintenance and repairs by doing your own work whenever possible.

True. But even if you have the physical ability, skills, tools, and equipment handy - you can spend a lot of time on maintenance & repairs. Just ask anyone who's done yard work for a few years, or has repainted a house, or ...

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#4

Post by M4R5H4LL »

With a mortgage, you are forced to save money. In other words you have no way around being disciplined. So yes in theory you could probably make more money with aggressive investing, but chances are most people would risk too much and lose a lot and never have the mental discipline of saving the excess they have no matter what happens in their life.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#6

Post by mholm »

Beyond the financials, the psychological impact of both being able to make greater-than-superficial changes, and having extremely predictable payments for years without worrying about substantial rent increases, is substantial.

I redid/improved the bathroom to exactly what I wanted. I renovated the kitchen. I added paneling to the walls. I added a few outlets to rooms that needed more. I wouldn't do these things in an apartment, because rent could go up any year and exploit me for liking my home. Property value has gone up by 50% in the years since I bought.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#7

Post by kube-system »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

> You can save a lot of money in maintenance and repairs by doing your own work whenever possible. True. But even if you have the physical ability, skills, tools, and equipment handy - you can spend a lot of time on maintenance & repairs. Just ask anyone who's done yard work for a few years, or has repainted a house, or ...

Yeah I was surprised not to see the opportunity cost angle in this article. For high income tech workers the opportunity cost can be huge

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#8

Post by janalsncm »

someuser54541 wrote: post #3

Aren't quite a few of these concerns alleviated by owning a condo?

A condo will have an HOA which is responsible for things like fixing the roof.

However, not all HOAs are actually financially responsible. So they might raise monthly fees, issue “special assessments” (lump-sum charges that can be $10k+) or take on loans. And they decide when they will do that.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#9

Post by com2kid »

It is suggested to set aside 1%-3% of your home's overall value for repairs every year.

Most people do not do this, and many homes thus slowly degrade in value. It is a fast track way to destroy potential generational wealth.

Home repair issues also tend to be bursty (rule of three...). You'll have a few years of nothing that'll lull you into a false sense of security, then suddenly three major issues will come up. So far this year I've had nearly 10K in random expenses pop up (!!) and based on the life expectancy of my HVAC system I expect I'll have some more major expenses next year.

If there is one near to you, join a tool library. It is a huge savings over buying specialized tools for one off jobs. Tool libraries are an amazing community resource.

Find a good reliable handy man, even if you know how to do things yourself. Hopefully one you can trust with your door code so if your neighbors report running water while you are away on a trip you have someone you can call who you know will take care of it.

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