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The real cost of owning a home

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Re: The real cost of owning a home

#851

Post by vel0city »

em-bee wrote: post #850
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a really awful law, TBH. I would never rent to someone if it meant that I was powerless to decide to end the relationship. I'm all for protecting tenants to some extent, but that law strikes me as abusive of the landowner.

see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286641 i don't agree that it is abuse of the landowner, but you also have to consider that in germany private landowners renting out are extremely rare. always have been. maintaining rental properties was always a business. as an individual home owner i would also not want to rent out either unless there are exceptional circumstances. but german cities do n…

> any multitenant building is by definition a business

Not inherently so, at least in the US. Lots of multi-family structures in the US have multiple independent owners of their own spaces. Townhouses, condos, and the like are often a collection of individually owned spaces with their own deeds and property rights. There is usually a shared organization, such as an HOA, that is in charge of the management of the joint property. This isn't really a "business" though, it doesn't look to make a profit and is chaired by residents.

For instance:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/211-Autumn-Pass-211-San-A...

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6205-Thomas-Dr-UNIT-F2-Pa...

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/121-121-Beach-St-803-Bost...

As an American it just seems strange to me to have people paying a corporation for the same home for 150 years and still have no real ownership stake in it. Like, over 150 years, wouldn't your family have paid many, many times the actual value of the property?

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#852

Post by eikenberry »

hansvm wrote: post #736
eikenberry wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most homes are fixer-uppers. They graduate to that after just a couple decades. I owned 2 homes, both in the 20-30 year range in 2 different cities.. combined (sometimes both) they needed... new roof, new hot water heater, kitchen and bathrooms updates and water mitigation, pest damage and control, leaky pipe fixing, wood deck replacing, furnace and AC replacements, basement flooding issues, foundation issues, probab…

You can tell when a home was built like that though. Why did you purchase it regardless? Why did you do it again after your first experience?

If professional inspectors cannot tell what makes you think you can? Our first home was inspected by a bank inspector + my wife's father who works in construction and everyone found it OK. We had the second home inspected by 2 separate inspectors and both OK'd the house with only minor issues.

All our friends have equally terrible stories. Maybe you just got lucky or haven't owned a home yet?

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#853

Post by asdff »

laughing_man wrote: post #631
asdff wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with fixer uppers the house is usually functional and fine. Just people think the bathroom is too ugly to poop in, so they have to spend five figures and rip out the walls, floor, ceiling, and everything else, to replace it with new walls, floor, ceiling, and everything else.

More like the bathroom is too ugly to poop in because there's a leak behind the shower and now there's mold growing on the wall.

That might be why some people renovate, but for most its because they think the color is wrong and they don't like the fixtures. Queue squandering money to achieve the same functionality and all the material waste throwing out the perfectly good fixtures and such and buying newly built fixtures and such.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#854

Post by asdff »

halostatue wrote: post #823
asdff wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just what happens with the rain load during the peak growing season. Later in the summer it will switch to a more drought condition though and there won't be so frequent mowing. But the peak parts, yeah, not much I don't think you can do via strain selection given the quantities of rainfall.

Fescue grasses mostly flop over rather than stand tall. Most lawns in North America are Kentucky Blue or ryegrass which are what produce the eyesore. But lawns in general are a pestilence.

Go ahead and try and mow that after its flopped over. Mower is going to choke with how much grass you are putting into it. You may need to weed wack it down and rake or blow it out before you can mow.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#855

Post by QuiEgo »

iamalizard wrote: post #837
QuiEgo wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>$515.50 per month for property taxes? That seems soo high. Where I live (Texas), there is no state income tax. They make it up by having high property taxes. It's something like $20,000/year per $1MM of property value. $515.50 would be so nice... > What does this cover - garbage collection, what else? Here, none of that (Garbage is billed by use as a utility, like electricity. You're charged by how big of a bin you…

> Where I live (Texas), there is no state income tax. They make it up by having high property taxes. I guess that makes some calculations quite different, like what rent should be, how much you can view a property as an investment, what types of businesses you can start there, and so on, compared to other states? > You're charged by how big of a bin you get). Are there no communal bins? Or is that for a closed commun…

In general, rent in Texas is higher than some places but lower than say, the Bay Area in California, because there is much more supply.

I live in a neighborhood of single family homes that are on big lots and spaced out (perhaps 20-30 meters between homes). There is no community trash bins. There also is very little foot traffic, aside from people who live in the neighborhood. In more urban areas, there would be public trash cans.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#856

Post by asdff »

gilbetron wrote: post #809
asdff wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you live. In the midwest you might legitimately need to mow 3x a week and you might have a huge lot. If you say screw it and let it go to knee high weeds, city might show up and cut your grass and fine you for it.

I live in the midwest and there never has been a time where any lawn I owned, nor was owned by anyone that I know, needed mowing 3x a week. You might like to do it to keep a perfectly manicured lawn, but it definitely isn't needed.

How much rainfall you get in the summer months? That is probably why. I do not kid with the 3x a week. If you don't keep up the grass gets too long and chokes the mower.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#857

Post by asdff »

password4321 wrote: post #613
asdff wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you live. In the midwest you might legitimately need to mow 3x a week and you might have a huge lot. If you say screw it and let it go to knee high weeds, city might show up and cut your grass and fine you for it.

Apparently robotic lawnmowers work pretty well these days, though it sounds like only one might not keep up if the lawn needs regular mowing that often.

You can never fully automate lawn work because a big time sink is actually stick pickup ahead of the mowing. Also, every property is loaded with edge cases.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#858

Post by asdff »

Suppafly wrote: post #731
asdff wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you live. In the midwest you might legitimately need to mow 3x a week and you might have a huge lot. If you say screw it and let it go to knee high weeds, city might show up and cut your grass and fine you for it.

Nah, I live in the midwest, even people that have lawn services have them come weekly or even every 10 days.

That would be fine in late summer but in growing season chances are you aren't noticing the increased mowing frequency. Most of it happens when you are probably working 9-5 after all.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#859

Post by itsmek »

hx8 wrote: post #272
sakopov wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue against this. I'm not sure owning is that much better. At the very least it's just as bad as renting if you bought in the past few years... I bought my home in 2023 and since then my monthly HOA payments doubled, my insurance premiums (nearly) tripled and my property taxes have gone up about $1000. Homeownership went from 35% to 45% of my monthly income. If you bought in the past few years, owning has a…

I own single family homes in a few different states. None of them are seeing the HOA + Insurance + Tax increases you are describing in the last 2 years. I'm guessing you bought in a place that is seeing a rapid increase in property values, which I saw in 2020-2022 by owning in a zoom town. That would explain why insurance and taxes are increasing.

It's probably Florida or some other gulf state with weather risk. Could be California with wildfire risk but then they wouldn't have tax increases. In both of these states insurance is going crazy without the property value cause you mention. If it's a condo then insurance can single handedly explain HOA rates (since they buy insurance too) as well as HO insurance rates.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#860

Post by BirAdam »

scoofy wrote: post #555
BirAdam wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HOA is something I could fight, but mine is currently cheap. The taxes, however, are infuriating. I’m getting taxed on unrealized gains after having paid taxes when buying the home. There is nothing I can do about the taxes, and if I do not pay my home will be taken. Essentially, I cannot own my home in any meaningful sense.

The road, water, sewer, and various other public services that make your house valuable are not free. I would familiarize yourself with your city’s municipal budget before complaining about paying taxes. You’re likely being subsidized by urban dwellers if you live outside the city center.

I pay water, sewer, gas, and power to those utilities directly. The taxes to my county don’t pay for roads as that’s handled by the state DOT. The bulk goes to county police, fire, and schools. Yet, these haven’t seen increased costs, the people in those jobs haven’t received pay raises (which, my God, why not?) and overall, I can’t see why my taxes then got raised.
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