Every drop of water, crack, ant, royally freaks me out at this point. I can’t afford to rent. I own a shitty house that is a fixer upper. So frustrating.
I’m in the same boat. Bought a home in 2020. It’s been a constant stream of fixes and updates and replacements. My mortgage payments are high enough. Now we’re dumping thousands of dollars on flood prevention, evestrough replacement, random leaky pipes, furnace cleaning, deck refinishing, grass and landscaping. Wife and I both work full-time. We are dipping into savings to upkeep our home. I totally regret it. Should have bought a 2-3bed condo instead. At least we could plan for the monthly condo fees and not worry about sudden emergency fixes. I don’t know. I hate it.
Yeah I don’t know how I feel about neighbors. I have good neighbors, but they are about 20 feet from me in either direction.
Even with an HOA, you can still end up needing to pay tens of thousands for surprise repairs in the forms of special assessments, especially if the HOA is poorly managed.
Try to only tackle one project at a time. It gets exponentially more stressful trying to juggle a bunch of incomplete projects. Also, you’ll never be “done”. That’s not the point. The point is shelter and comfort.
This is probably some of the best advice here. It’s important to prioritize what is going to the most costly if you don’t fix it now, and if you try to do 7 things at once, you will feel like none of them will ever be done, which contributes to your stress more than still having 6 broken things after fixing one.
Maybe take a moment to appreciate the incredible privilege you have to own your home. Nearly everyone reading this will never get to own a home.
It’s been far more expensive than renting. We bought a house with a lot of problems and kt8a struggle. I would never call it a privilege. It’s like buying a car built in 1983 with 500,000 miles.
Then sell it
Oh, I want to so much. But I can’t convince the wife.
Then quit complaining and accept your choices
Not a home owner yet, but I just purchased a home and waiting on the handover.
This post has been really helpful! Certainly in writing some stuff down to remember 😅
Not easy but have enough surplus to cover those things.
Also try to remember all the mortgage you’re paying you’ll most likely get back when you sell, unlike when you rent.
I sure wouldn’t say ‘all’. The first years of your mortgage you are paying the bank more in interest than you are knocking off the principal.
A $300k home with 20% down and an interest rate of 3.5% on a 25 year amortization schedule will see the buyer paying $8k in interest versus $6k towards the principal at the start. Over the course of the mortgage, the $300k home will cost $420k thanks to the $120k in interest the bank takes.
The way people should think about it is not whether or not they break even compared to having not purchased the house. The real comparison is if they end up better off than if they paid rent that whole time instead.
If you bought a house for $300k, paid $420k for it over 30 years, and sold for $320k, you could think of it as a $100k loss, but you’d still end up $420k ahead of someone who had the same monthly payment going to a landlord.
I solved this by selling my house and outsourcing all those bullshit problems to the landlord.
I can’t think of a time I’ve ever had a landlord fix a problem. I wish I lived somewhere that you could just deduct repair costs from the rent, or otherwise withhold rent.
If you need to hire a tradesperson, find small companies, folks who work for themselves. We’re WAY cheaper than the shops are and can usually a) make time for you and b) work with you on it all. Plus, we need the money more ;D
For real though, I just bought my first home a couple years back and I get it. There’s a lot I don’t know still. It’ll be alright, just keep an eye out for water damage. And if something starts sparking, cut the breaker off and call someone. Pretty much anything up to that point can be handled with YouTube and Harbor Freight.
And the more you open up to fix the more systemic problems you find. In an old/fixer house. Try to pick one project at a time. Spend some money when u have too. Have seen some smart people locate home improvement grants for upgrades/HVAC. You’ll need to spend money. No avoiding it. In a couple years you’ll forget how bad it all seemed and get used to the minor annoyances you haven’t gotten too. And don’t forget to learn some things. Buy a bug pump sprayer and specific chemicals on line. Learn how important gutters are and getting storm water away from the foundations. Get some rugs to cover the gaps and caulk the cracks. Most importantly A good partner for the decorating to make u forget it’s a shitty house no matter how much work you put in
To answer your question I just drink a lot.
Get handy. Fix things before they go bad, and learn basic construction on the way. Second hand tools are cheap, and there’s a number of good youtubers to help in any situation. After you get your bearings, it turns into a fun way to make the place into what you want it to be. Nothing is terribly difficult, and materials can be had cheap if you’re not in an emergency. Facebook marketplace allowed me to build a house for 70k over two years, and it’s valued at 350k, and not finished yet. The experience gained led me to doing odd side jobs and reselling unused materials to keep paying for new additions. If you can replace your own water heater, you can replace someone elses for half the price of Lowes and still take home 700$ for three hours work. Pick up some resold tile and put in a bathroom wall. You’ll find out what you did wrong in your own bathroom and won’t mess up someone elses for some extra cash in a pinch.
Electrical work is my favorite. Know the code, and how to stay safe, and it’s a lot of fun that the average person is HORRIFIED of. Get a good electricians multitool, a current tester, a drill and some tape, and you can perform miracles.
Most people will never afford a house. You don’t have to fix it, you get to fix it, so take pride and make it somewhere you love to live.
You’re still better off owning a house and paying for repairs than paying rent. Even with the cost of repairs it’s most likely cheaper in the long run and you’re your own landlord.
Not really much advice other than being proactive about issues, but it is funny how concerned you quickly become with all types of water once you own a home. Rain intrusion, drainage in the yard, leaky pipes, dripping noises, frozen pipes, gutters, humidity, water heater, storms, etc, etc. It’s a real menace and so are squirrels (as I also found out after purchasing a home).
This right here. Every running water noise your ears perk up thinking that it’s the worst. Then you realise it’s just the dishwasher.
Did you hear that? I feel like the toilet flushed funny
I just fixed the dishwasher that is original to the house. I’ve never used a dishwasher before(ty technology connections). my god is it loud and keeps giving me a heat attack even a week after using it, but I can’t argue with clean dishes.
You certainly can argue with them. It’s only a problem if they start to argue back.
how concerned you quickly become with all types of water
LOL, yes! 99% of my problems these last 5 years have been related to water. It’s really made me want to learn more about plumbing.
I pulled the hydrometer out of my cigar humidor to became more aware of the dampness of my basement. I also spent over $1,000 on evicting a family of raccoons out from under my backyard deck. So yeah, I get it HAH
Did you have to hire a lawyer to serve them papers?
They just ate it as well :(
Is this a typical feeling? I’ve been planning to buy a home soon…
I think it depends on the property and the amount of repairs you can afford.
We budgeted .5% of the cost of the house for repairs annually - put it aside in a separate account so you can replace the roof/furnace/etc without taking a lifestyle hit.
Adjust the proportion by the age and state of the property.
Yes, but you get used to it. It’s a typical feeling for the first few years if it’s your first house.
Learn to repair things properly and that will reduce a ton of stress. You will also learn what things can be put off and what needs to be done immediately.
Over the years, I have learned how to do just about every kind of home repair or update. Its been rewarding, actually.
It is, but OP’s is a little worse because they got a fixer-upper. If you’re buying new (or newer), you should have less anxiety given you get a proper inspection done before closing. You’ll still have to learn doing maintenance and repairs of course, as there will always be something that will come up.
I have have pretty bad anxiety. So it may me just me.
This is absolutely normal when you first buy the place. I bought my place in 2017 and was super anxious over the first year because I suddenly had basically no savings and all my equity was in this building. I didn’t know anything about home repair and couldn’t afford to hire someone who did.
The thought of something going wrong enough that it would ruin the place gave me an anxiety attack more than once.
Then, after a couple years and a few things needing fixed, I realized that things don’t go wrong that often and most of the time if they do, they are easy to fix.
I think it really depends on the home, get an inspection to try to see some of the problems beforehand and you won’t be caught too off guard.
For me water is the biggest thing, water in the basement, water through the roof, water by the window sills, it never ends! Every expense seems to be another 5k or 20k, owning a fixer upper is an expensive endeavor
Not for me. I… Don’t have leaks? I know where my water shutoff is if I need it.
I like owning.
For some of the other posts I see here, in case you have these problems in the future. These aren’t in order of importance.
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Powdered ant killer that comes in the tube is better than those little ant traps. Don’t waste your money on traps.
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I had a groundhog living under some cement steps in the backyard. Tried all sorts of things to evict him, but didn’t want to kill or hurt him. Tried repellents, moth balls, pepper powder, etc. Tried filling in the hole repeatedly. eventually I got pissed and started dumping the cat box in the den. I only had to do it once.
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If you’re paranoid about burglars, neighbors, etc. get some motion sensing lights for outside. And the cheapest home security cameras you can get. I started with some very cheap Blink wifi cameras (battery powered, about $100 for 4 on Woot!) years ago. Upgraded last year to mains powered Blink LED lights and cameras. Then when I went on vacation for a couple weeks, I pulled the battery cameras out of the drawer and set them up strategically inside the house. Blink charges a monthly subscription now (I grandfathered in before they charged), so plan accordingly.
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know where all the shutoffs are, and how to use them. Power, Water, Natural gas, etc. And DON’T FUCK WITH NATURAL GAS! Let the professionals do it. I guy near Detroit killed his entire family last year swapping out a hot water heater himself. He survived. The house was no longer there.
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Smoke alarms, get them. at least one for every level, PLUS one in every bedroom. Get the connected alarms that set off the entire house when one goes off. CO detectors too, if you have appliances that burn stuff.
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Know when to bodge a fix, and when to nut up and spend some time and money on something. Damp mouldy patch on the ceiling? Have a look in the ceiling space, see if you can spot the issue, fix it if it’s easy. Slap some mould killer on it, done, don’t worry about it. If it comes back? Get it fixed.
Writing shit down helps. I’ve got a whole todo list of things that need to be fixed. It’s shitty how long it is, but because it’s written down it’s already half taken care of and I don’t have that random stress of ‘oh good that’s right there’s a leaky shower’ and having to remember to do that thing.
List the issues, google one by one how to bodge it, decide if it’s worth it.
I understand this will sound crazy. I started running, a lot. A few half marathons per year. It’s a juxtaposition of enjoying the benefits and hating the activity.
The biggest benefit is being able to handle more stress, and deal with the stress better, in general. I tell myself during the first mile (as it’s the most difficult to start), “I am expanding my capacity to endurance stress and suffering” it’s shifted the way I look at problems.
A recent example: I paid a contractor to build a wall to split a room, and to install new flooring on the floor. It looked nice. A year later, I encountered a problem in the bathroom that exposed a leak that’s probably existed since the work was done. The bathroom is being torn apart and completely redone by me. I’m not thrilled, and was absolutely pissed at first, but it’s subsided much faster than it used to. I can’t afford to hire someone again, but I do have another bathroom to use during this process, so it can wait. It’s shifted my perspective, and I’m seeing this now as “expanding a set of skills that can be useful again” instead of completely dreading it. Of course I prefer this didn’t happen 😊 but wishing reality is different doesn’t help anything.
