maintenance of owning a home

Hi all,

DH and I are looking again since interest rates are attractive, but I am cautious about such a huge investment and then the *unknown* expenses (maybe the movie MONEY PIT scared me?, lol)

So for those that have crunched the numbers or experienced this themselves....can you give me an estimate on how much maintaining a home costs (not including taxes)? I know everyone says to just save money for the "just in case" costs, but I am trying to get a sense of what that is on a yearly (or over the course of 5 or 10 years). leaks? boilers? roof issues? etc. etc. etc.

I am starting to lean towards looking at a condo, just so I know that someone else is in charge of all the major issues, and my monthly expenses are somewhat fixed.

Any feedback/advice is greatly appreciated!

I'm quite confused!

Re: maintenance of owning a home

It so funny my hubby and I joke about it. we say that any time something breaks in the house it's approx. $1000 to fix/repair or replace. That's in addition to the monthly expenses. Washer and Dryer needed replacement $1000. cesspool pumped and aerated $1000. garage door replaced $1000.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

I would say that so much depends on the area you buy, the house, and yourself.

Utility costs, for example. Water is usually pretty inexpensive, but heat and electric can vary based on the house itself (how energy efficient is it? how old is the heating system? what type of fuel is it (oil, gas?) do you have multiple zones of heat and CAC? how big is the house?), as well as your personal useage (do you use a lot of electronic equipment? do you like to keep the house really warm in the winter or hot in the summer? how many people live there? does everyone work outside the home?).

Landscaping costs will vary based on whether you intend to hire someone or will be taking care of it yourselves. And if you hire someone, are they doing everything (fall/spring cleanups, trimming hedges, etc.) or just cutting the lawn?

Maintenance and upkeep costs will vary depending on whether you have service contracts in place (for things like heating system, CAC, termite control) and how many "extras" you have (alarm system, in ground sprinklers, etc.). It's hard to predict when things will break and need to be repaired or replaced, but if you buy a house with a new roof, you can expect you won't need to replace it for 30 years. If you buy a house where major systems are at the end of their lifespan, you should be prepared to replace them in the near future. You will have a home inspection before you purchase any home. You can also buy a home warranty that will keep your repair costs down for the first year of home ownership.

As far as co-ops and condos -- With a condo, you are often responsible for repairing or replacing things like the heating system and central air. A co-op, you typically don't have those responsiblities, and often some utilities (heat, water) will be included in your monthly maintenance. But on Long Island, a single family home is a far better investment than a co-op and condo, if you can afford it.

Feel free to contact me if I can help you with your search, or if you have other questions.

maintenance of owning a home

There's no way to tell what will go wrong at any given time. We did all major repairs (roof, heating, electric) when we bought our place so we haven't had to do anything in the past 2 years. But things do come up, Could be minor or major. You just don't know...

maintenance of owning a home

There is really no way to guesstimate the maintenance costs. For us it is not much since if soemthing breaks we usually fix it ourselves. So I have not had to hire a plumber, electician etc.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

hey!

for us, we took into account an approximation of our monthly expenses and everything

then, when we bought the house, we made sure we had xx amount in savings for anything that would come up

we knew that if anything needed to be fixed, we would take it out of that money and then work to rebuild our savings

knock on wood, after 5 months we've had no issues-just doing the stuff that we want to do/updating/upgrading/small reno projects

if you have any more questions let me know!

Re: maintenance of owning a home

within 2 days after closing, our upstairs bathroom leaked into our kitchen downstairs. we had to redo all of the sheet rock.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

The day after we closed our basement floor was full of water. Luckily it was not finished and we fixed the problem a couple years later.

Appliances break... even if you think they are on the newer side, and they are not cheap to replace. Think AC's even central air. Even our vacuum broke unexpectedly.

anything can happen with any house unfortunately.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

thanks for all the replies. while i realize that its hard to predict, i guess i was just wondering if there is a number out there like "on average, the cost of maintaining a home over a __ year period is $$$"

i guess nothing is that easy though....

Re: maintenance of owning a home

We were very lucky and also very careful. Our sellers were gracious and we spent a lot of time testing things out in this house, asking them questions in order to determine whether they took shortcuts when they did remodeling, etc. Of course we had a good engineer. There have not been tons of unexpected expenses in our 7 years here. We did have a pipe break last year but we only had to pay the deductible. The most unexpected aspect of our expenses was the price of oil. We estimated our usage but the price we predicted in early 2005 was not the price that held later on. My friends in condos also have unexpected expenses, things that break, etc.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

within the first year of owning our home, no joke, we put 20k+ into it

we had to put in a new front door, wood was rotting (not noted on home inspection)

had to stabilize the deck and redo a portion

had to add 2 dry wells on the side in the back because water was not draining (we had a swamp on the side of our home)

all new appliances (the old worked, but they were OLD)

updated some electrical

on the first day we were in the new home (i kid you not) the sink, washing machine and BRAND NEW dishwasher all leaked. It was like a BAD joke. All we could do was laugh

Just installed a new water heater (other was working but on its way out - that was noted on the home inspection.

Add landscaping, etc. It all adds up.

We do not foresee any work that will NEED to be done over the next year but we are considering a new kitchen OR C/A.

As far as bills - when all is said and done, we are probably paying close to 1k not including mortgage or taxes.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

Over the last 10 years we have owned our 80 year old home we have probably spent close to $20K in repairs..not reno or cosmetic improvements.

That's not a lot of money considering the age of the home.

But things are coming due soon..I know there is a roof repair, bathroom reno and water heater replacement in my near future.

Re: maintenance of owning a home

Just wanted to add that while owning a home involves expenditures on maintenance and upkeep, I don't think it should be a deterrent from buying a home.

To me, it's like owning a car. There's maintenance expenditures with a car (inspections, oil changes, repairs). Sure, you could not own a car and rely on public transportation, and then your costs are fixed (just the cost of the bus, train, etc.), but for most of us, the benefits of owning a car outweight the costs.

I think it's similar with a home. I rented for years when I lived in the cities, so not knocking rentals at all. I know there are good and valid reasons why people choose to rent. But when you own a home, you get great tax benefits (you can deduct your property taxes as well as your mortgage interest, and interest makes up most of your montly mortgage payment until you get to the last few years of your loan). I think those tax benefits outweigh any costs of maintenance on a home. Also, when you invest in your home by replacing old items or systems in the home, you are building equity... it's an investment in what is probably your largest asset.

So it's not all negative, there are some definite pluses to owning a home, if you can afford it!