Reply to Shelled out $16K in one week on home/life repairs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Oh my god. I am literally thinking about buying a house that would bring our joint savings down to a 2 month emergency fund we'd have to replenish (yes, budgeting for moving costs in there) and there is no way we could soak up $16k in a week for months afterward. Is that really the cash you have to have on hand at all times?[/quote]

Well, there's this thing called a credit card . . . [/quote]

yep

we bought our house three years ago (almost). it's an old house, and we got a good deal - but with that said, i'd say we've had somewhere between $10k and 25k worth of must-do repairs every year since we bought it so far. we are hoping that as we get old stuff upgraded that number will go down, but at this end of the tunnel i would say be absolutely sure that you have taken into account how much it will cost to keep up any house you are considering buying.

this isn't fun, hgtv-type stuff we've had to do. it's, like, replace the electrical wiring in the kitchen and have our sewer line replaced. i would assume that any house without a warranty/that isn't brand new will be similar.[/quote]

Geez - $25k is more than my rent and the mortgage we are considering, and no, we do not have that to spare. But surely not everyone who owns a home spends $40-50k+ on it per year, or nobody making under $200k would own a home, and many do....[/quote]

We make under $180K and regularly put out $15-20, sometimes more per year on house repairs as we got a house that needed everything.  Every year or so we do one big thing.[/quote]

i'm the pp and we are at about $180k, too. the repairs are super expensive! in exchange we get to live in a house we love - and accrue all the benefits of homeownership, which seem to be many - but let's just lay out that we aren't taking lots of expensive vacations or saving tons of money at the moment.[/quote]

What are the other benefits of homeownership if you are spending $20k+ a year on repairs? Serious question. Renter PP here at under $150k with kids in day care, so that kind of money is make or break.[/quote]

For us the benefits include that a house is essentially forced savings. So we live in an area where housing prices keep going up - and we bought an underpriced house in that area. We hope that, barring anything catastrophic, when we sell the house we ill take $100k plus with us. There are also tax benefits. And the psychical benefit of living in a place that's yours. We get to make all the decisions we want to make with this place. When I buy $100 of plants to put in the garden, that's my garden. We can change the fixtures to be whatever we want. That sort of thing.

I rented until a few years ago. I was in my early 40s when we bought this house and it's my first house. I would say for me, I like being a homeowner even with the expenses (so far).[/quote]

We did our HVAC too. Cost $25k for high end daikin units installation etc. I'm sure a landlord would have stuck us with a cheap haier and jacked up the rent.[/quote]

That's another good point. A landlord would have put in the cheapest possible dishwasher when ours broke last year. We got to pick which one we wanted.

We aren't HAPPY about all the expenses we've had. But we do love our house. And we hope that it's a good financial instrument in the long run as well. That's basically it. On top of really enjoying where we live, and liking that we get to make the decisions about the place - like which HVAC unit to buy, what colors the walls will be, which ceiling fans we want, etc - we are hopeful that when the day comes to sell it'll put is in a better position than if we'd kept renting.

If you're in a situation where you would prefer to pay rent than deal with the expenses and hassle of owning a place - and/or if you think that you are better off saving the $ you'd spend on a mortgage and repairs and upkeep in another instrument - then that's cool, too.

I should also add that we no longer live in DC. We moved a few years ago. When we looked at what we could buy in the DC area at the amount we were willing and able to spend, we just didn't see any good prospects. So we rented in DC because we want to live someplace we really like, and our rent went further than a mortgage would have gone for us. We now live in a much lower cost of living city.[/quote]

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