When my husband and I first decided to buy a house, I had a panic attack concerns about money.
After I freaked out asked him to, my very patient husband created a detailed budget of our current, apartment-lifestyle expenses. We wanted to use our existing expenses to help estimate our potential future house-related expenses. So basically, what we did was to a) create an average of our expenses over a “random sampling” of six months; b) break down those averages per square foot of our apartment; and c) apply those expenses to the house we had fallen in love with. (The house we got, by the way. But we don’t close until October and I have heard SO MANY horror stories about last minute deal-breaking badness that I am not going to celebrate until we are sitting in our house surrounded by suitcases.)
Obviously, this little three-step plan only works for things like heat and water and electricity and other square-footage related expenses. So we did some additional fancy estimates for other stuff. Plus, we obviously had a good idea of what our mortgage payments would be and what the insurance would cost and how much taxes would be.
After all the math (I kept saying to my husband, in a shrieky firm voice, that I needed to SEE THE MATH before I would feel at all comfortable even setting foot in a house. Because I know – I KNOW – that I would fall completely head over heels in love with a house that we could never afford and either insist on buying it even if it drove us into the poorhouse OR be so heartbroken that we couldn’t buy it that no house would ever measure up.) [INSERT: Pre-parenthetical recap: After all the math], I remained unconvinced. Being an excellent former English major, I was certain that even the most meticulous equations would lead us astray if we didn’t account for all the variables? integers? differentials? [math term]s necessary to give us the very closest, most accurate estimate possible. (Yes, I do realize that the very definition of “estimate” implies “inaccuracy.”)
You see, I was SURE that there were all of these hidden expenses lurking in unnoticed corners of our future home. Expenses that we couldn’t anticipate because we’d never owned a home.
My husband and I strained our brains trying to come up with these hidden costs.
Only after the seller had accepted our offer and we were standing in the family room with the inspector did a few of them show up. At which point I triumphantly… well, stared at the back of my husband’s head. Because he was busy listening to the inspector while I was still thinking about THE MATH.
Anyway, I thought I would make a list of some of the unexpected expenses that we learned about. I am sure that once we move in (IF we move in, doom doom doom), we’ll come up with many a couple some more. Perhaps I will remember I wrote this post and come back to update it. But… let’s be honest: Perhaps not.
Unexpected Expenses
– Bug guy – Our sellers spray for bugs monthly. Which means that I will spray for bugs monthly. Because a bug-free home is worth any amount of money.
– Chimney sweeper – This is a once-a-year sort of expense, according to our inspector.
– Snow removal – We live in a snowy area. So. (Why didn’t we anticipate this one? SPOILED APARTMENT DWELLERS.)
– Outdoor chimney de-mossifying – I don’t know if this is a regular sort of expense. Obviously you need a chimney, for starters. And, you know, moss growth on said chimney. Which apparently we do. My husband knows more about this than I do, and he claims it won’t take more than some bleach and a spray bottle.
– Roof flashing stuff – Okay, I admit that my memory of specific terminology and “whyness” and “how oftenness” breaks down here because a) the inspector was climbing up a rickety ladder by himself to gambol about on the steeply-sloped roof and b) I was too busy trying to process the word “flashing” in a way that didn’t involve, you know, trench coats and naughty bits and c) is my husband going to be gamboling about on the steeply-sloped roof in our future?
– Re-Argoning the windows – This may not be the technical term. But apparently double-paned windows have Argon gas between them to insulate the room (I am totally making this up – I have no idea if this is correct and am too lazy to look it up) and sometimes the Argon can leak out for whatever reason. When this happens, air rushes in to fill the gap and the windows fog up. Permanently. Which, obviously, total first world purely aesthetic problem. But it would drive me crazy. Am not sure how often this happens or what it takes to do a good re-Argoning. Certainly unanticipated, though!
– Security system – I work from home and I’m married to a man who’s often gone at night and for many hours at a time. So we shall have a security system. And perhaps a team of bodyguards to protect me from unfamiliar creaks and traffic noises.
And… that’s all I can remember at the moment.
What about you, Internet? When you first bought a home, did you come across any expenses that you just hadn’t thought about?
Congrats on the seller accepting your offer! (Or should I hold back my congratulations until it’s really a done deal? I hope this isn’t bad luck…)
I’m trying to think about expenses we hadn’t thought about that back when we bought our apartment… one of the was the HOA’s monthly payments that corresponded to the developer/contractor because they were the owners of the house up until we bought it, so it was their responsibility. But just before our first meeting with the HOA we found out that they had left us a debt of 3-4 months to pay for, and if it wasn’t paid before the meeting, we didn’t get a vote on the things we were discussing. Obviously we could’ve sued them for it, but it wasn’t worth it…
Another thing we didn’t account for were the initial expenses of setting up gas/water/electricity, duh. I think that’s about it, though!
Don’t panic!! ENJOY this major life happening, allow yourself to experience the joy and excitement!!..
It does sound like you have it pretty well covered…the only other thing I ask is that you really know all of the details and aspects of your mortgage– that is if you are indeed obtaining one…. Check to see if you are paying any ”points”…that can get pretty costly,especially when one is not expecting it..and you get a lovely surprise on or near to your closing date!
My advice– consult with a good Real estate attorney!!
Again, all will work out– enjoy the moment!
This is a little thing, but it drives us crazy. The previous homeowners installed these light fixtures that use ridiculously expensive tiny floodlights that burn out frequently. It’s not exactly a budget-breaker, but we hate spending so much money on lights!
Congratulations on the house!!
We bought our house pre-construction, so we weren’t too worried with replacing things. BUT, we installed a fence (we had dogs) had to buy a lot of lawn care equipment (it’s actually cheaper to pay someone else to do it than spend money on a sit-down mower and build a shed to house said mower – which we did). Also, when our AC was installed, the company screwed something up, so 2 years later, we had to pay about $800 for a repair. So, you might want to look into a service that checks your AC every year (fills it w/fluid, etc.).
All that being said, usually the expenses are spread out. And, there’s always homeowner’s insurance for the unforeseen natural disasters that could cause damage. If you love the home, enjoy it! I’ll be crossing my fingers for you.
One thing I found reassuring is that the mortgage companies don’t want to lend us more money than they think we can pay back, so they take the math into account already. Er, not that they care about us STRETCHING ourselves too far—but they protect their interests by not letting us take more than they really do think we can pay back. We had to get pre-approved for a mortgage before our agent would even take us around, so we gave all our numbers to the mortgage company and they said we could have up to $x, and so we knew not to buy any houses over $x. We got very close to $x, which made me EXTREMELY NERVOUS because I didn’t want to borrow “the most we could”—but it turned out we qualified for, like, the lowest possible amount of money, so that our agent was thinking she was going to have to show us condos and trailers instead of houses, so there wasn’t much wiggle room. So we borrowed $x, and we HAVE been able to make the payments, even with OMG PANIC moments like roof re-doing, new water heater, broken window, and quarterly water/sewer bills.
Another thing that reassured me when I was panicking was thinking about how our payments would stay the same, but rent would go up. So at first, the payment was more than our rent and it felt hyperventilatey to do that. But at this point, it’s starting to seem like a bargain.
Another reassuring thing I STILL think of is that we don’t have to do all of it at once. We have a constant list of improvements and repairs, but we lived fine with a worse-condition apartment, so some of the improvements/repairs can wait on the house, too. It’s like a long-term project, not something that needs to be perfect before we move in.
Something that I find reassuring but I’m not sure everyone would, is that there will be surprise expenses and there’s no way to avoid it. I found I was going nuts trying to anticipate every single thing (me, during the final walkthrough before signing the papers: “IS THAT A TINY WATER STAIN ON THE BASEMENT FLOOR???”), but it helped me to think that surprise expenses just go along with the home-buying thing: there’ll be things we didn’t think of, things we didn’t notice, etc. So then when we found out our house had bad wiring and that our agent evidently paid off an electrician to say otherwise for the inspection, I could just think to myself, “Okay, there’s one of our surprise things. I wonder what the others will be?”
I had NO IDEA any of those were a thing. Tells you how prepared I am to own a house (hint: not at all). Congrats on the big news though! That’s so exciting!
You know. They make these awesome machines for snowy areas called Snow blowers that blow the snow right off your driveway. And you just buy the machine, one time if you get a good one..and then you don’t have to pay anyone to come remove your snow at some ungodly hour. Some of those other things – like re-argoning and roof repairs…sound like the sellers responsibility to me. Sounds like you found something you love though, so subdued congrats (since you’re waiting for doom doom doom). More excited congrats to come in October when you move in and post pictures of the new awesome house. You will do that, won’t you? We’re never moving..so I need to live vicariously through others.
This is exactly why I’m too terrified to even consider purchasing a home! EEEK! As exciting as having our own space is, the money issue is definitely the hardest part for me to swallow. I keep telling Russ that between now and then we need to be come a lot more “handy” so we can fix as many things ourselves as possible. Obviously that will be impossible for some things, but I’m bound and determined to at least try! (ohh how the optimism will fail)
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you that no additional expenses pop up – I obviously don’t know enough about this. The only thing I think of is if you have a yard – mowing, etc. Only because I can’t wait to get one and it’s a “must have” for our future abode…
I’m so excited for you! I hope it works out!
Growing up, my parents lived in the same house for 10 years, and one of our double-paned windows ever had that problem once during the whole time. So I don’t think it’s something that occurs regularly.
I can offer you a little bit of feel betteredness in that I’ve owned and lived in two different homes and we make NO money worth speaking of (we live, basically off one income but we do it comfortably). My advice to any new home buyer is that as long as you KNOW YOUR MEANS and live WITHIN YOUR MEANS you will be fine. Once you venture OUTSIDE OF YOUR MEANS you are screwed. The end.
You know, preschool stuff that apparently is alot harder for some people than it should be.
Ugh. The plumbing was an unexpected expense for us. We had our main line backing up only a few weeks after moving in and had to pay someone $300 to come clean out the pipe and whatnot.
Also we had an unusually rainy season which flooded a very small portion of our basement. Luckily ours was small enough we took care of it with loooots of towels and fans and getting our sump pump working again (yay for a father-in-law who, I am convinced, can do EVERYTHING). But some of our neighbors had to hire flood clean up people.
Also lawn care sucked. Had to shell out for a lawnmower and I started a garden, which was kind of pricy in start-up costs.
Overall though, I absolutely love having a house.
Hehehehehe. Yes, having a house is unexpectedly expensive. But I agree with what someone else said above – there are always going to be unexpected costs and you can’t plan for everything, so there is some comfort in that.
Here’s my two cents, for what it’s worth:
We get our house sprayed for bugs quarterly and don’t have any problems.
We’ve had the argon windows for three years and we haven’t had a problem. Yet. :/
We shovel our own snow, but if we could afford to pay someone, we totally would!
I don’t know about the rest of the stuff. I think our most surprising expense was replacing the air conditioning. Not surprising, exactly, because things happen, but it still sucked to shell out $1,500!
You guys will be just fine, promise. 🙂
Our biggest unknown expenses were all of the little things that it took to get the house looking like a home. Curtain rods become expensive and only half of our old ones fit the new windows…and then they didnt match and then I became anal and wanted everything to match which resulted in a few more $$ being spent. Then you find you need a new rug here or the bathroom doesnt have a toilet paper fixture and you have to find the right one etc. We had some money set a side for some but there were some items and furniture we just waited a few months to get and the rooms sat empty or unfinished and that was just fine! Almost congrats on your almost new house! I cant wait to hear more about it!
Ugh Bugs! Yes, you need a bug guy! For me, the unexpected expenses were appliances. My house came with them all but within a month I already knew that I was going to have to purchase a new washing machine and a new fridge – neither worked right. I also spent way more money than I would have liked on landscaping things – shovels, rakes, hoses, plants, etc. But, owning a house is really fun too! There is just something about it being all YOURS and yes, you can tear out a wall if you want or paint a wall some ridiculous color!
Argon, eh? Is that why my kitchen windows are permanenty fogged? And are you saying I should care about this?
Kidding — the fog used to drive me nuts, but not nuts enough to do anything about it. It’s still there. Eight years later. I did install some shades to cover it up, though!
I feel like there are ten million little unexpected expenses, but I can’t even remember what they are. Just be prepared for a lot of trips to Home Depot!
We had a terrible home inspector and within 2 years we had to completely replace the roof…like even the wood under the shingles ($10,000), get a new boiler ($5000), and get vinyl siding ($10,000) (We knew we’d have to at least paint it, but the wood was in such bad shape, we would have had to replace all of the wood first, so we just went with vinyl). So, yeah, $25,000 in extra expenses! And we bought in 2005 at the height of the market, so our house is now worth $40,000 less than what we paid for it, not including the extra we put into it after! There was aslo buying curtains and wall decor, which can wait obviously and furniture because going from an apt to a house, means a lot of extra space and no furniture to fill it. The lawn takes a lot of time, to mow and fertilize and water and try to keep looking nice in general. We have a snow blower. BUT, it is so nice to have a place that is OURS that we can paint whatever color we want and grow flowers in the garden if we want and have BBQs and no one is up at 3am upstairs making noise. It’s worth it!!
There is also the replacements for your air filters, replacement once ever three months if you’re ON IT like Adam was. There is a once a year look over of your exterior caulking which is smart, the first summer we were in the house we had to pull it ALL off ourselves, and recaulk the exterior of the house and touchup paint. It took us THREE MONTHS. Most people just pay. Caulking is key. Bad caulking means leaking. We found leaking in our front porch from bad caulk that turned into a 600 dollar repair.
Ummm there is added time for summer power washing of your walks and decks, and the yearly sealing for any wood decks. There is lawn maintenance, so fertilizer, deweeding, and weekly mowing, there is a yearly furnace inspection people highly suggest. Gutter clearing in the spring…
Not sure what else. Before we moved we were looking to reseal the garage floors, we needed to have the crawl space looked at for leaks just to be sure, and this summer we were planning to have the roof checked for leaking just to be safe.
Honestly, you can’t plan for it, because when it comes to owning a home, there is ALWAYS something, and someone you owe. But, it’s so so so worth it.
I am adding my vote for the unexpected costs of lawn and garden care: you will have no idea you need a particular tool until you want to use it RIGHT THEN and you either have to borrow one from a neighbor or run to Home Depot immediately (actually Lowe’s in my case — there is one across the street from my subdivision!) — in our first year in our house we had to get shovels, a rake, weed diggers, trowels, shears, nippers, gardening gloves, hoses and sprayer nozzles, flower pots, a leaf sucker/smusher… and probably more that I can’t remember. Thank goodness we inherited a lawn mower from his father!
And once you start investing in the tools, you’ll be all like, “Well, flowers would sure make this area look nice since I have already spent all the time to tidy the rest of it up, and they aren’t that expensive…” until you have poured $250 into annuals between spring and fall, and you start buying mulch and weed killer and weed-and-feed for the lawn, and hanging baskets for the porch and decorative ferns for either side of the front door and urns for them to sit in and cutesy seasonal “welcome” flags that hang out front and… and… Sigh. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, it’s a lot of fun to have space of your own but it can turn into a big project if you don’t have a set goal in mind beforehand. =)
Also, our home inspector recommended that we pick up a copy of “The Big Orange Book” at Home Depot when we bought our house. It’s actually called “Home Improvement 1-2-3,” and I have to admit that it is LOADED with helpful information, particularly if you aren’t already super handy. So there’s always that, if you’re worried about little repairs and improvements getting too expensive. Bottom line: it will all work out fine. Having your own home is tough but very rewarding, and you are as prepared as you can be. Take a deep breath and smile. Congrats on your offer getting accepted!
We moved into our brand new house almost 14 years ago. Yes there have been unexpected expenses and replacements like disposal, washer, hot water heater, dishwasher, stove, refrigerator and heat pump, but considering that was spread out it wasn’t horrible – guess you can tell that our builder used the cheapest of everything when he built this house and being first-time home buyers we didn’t know the difference. We had to pave the driveway and buy lawn equipment, but it may be easier to have someone mow the lawn – here it runs around $35 a week in the spring and summer and of course you don’t need it in the winter. We remove our own snow. You really don’t need more than quarterly service for bugs and make sure you have a termite inspection. Decorating is what really cost us because we were starting from scratch with window blinds, curtains, curtain rods, area rugs, shower curtains and rods, furniture to fill the daggone rooms and HOA fees. That’s the bad, but I could list 1,000 wonderful things about owning your own home so don’t let the what-if’s worry you. Buy a new homeowner’s warranty – it’s worth the $300 a year. The power bill is high in the summer for us because I like it very cool, but it all works out because I like it cool in the winter so we don’t run a lot of heat. If you have to buy appliances do not skimp and get the cheapest because you will be replacing them in a couple of years – make the investment if possible, Enjoy your new home – it really is wonderful even with all the unexpecteds 🙂
Congrats on your first home buying venture! I feel you on the whole nail-biting anxiety that comes with waiting to close. I hope everything goes smoothly and nothing falls through!
As for our unexpected expenses… One week after living in our new home, our garage door started deeply sagging in the middle, thus making it so we had to go through all kinds of steps just to close our garage door. We ended up having to replace the whole thing. That was definitely an unexpected expense. The day C moved in, he saw the microwave was cracked down the middle, so we had to buy and install a new one. Again, unexpected expense AND extra work! But honestly? Other than that? Nothing (knock on wood!!!). We knew what our mortgage payment/property taxes/insurance costs would be. We guesstimated electric and water, which were generally on target, except the last two months wherein our electric was high because it was sweltering outside and it didn’t matter if we kept our AC on 77 because it STILL ran too much. Really, that’s about it. We are having an alarm system installed next week, but we planned on that.
Anyway, if you keep in mind ALL the things you are considering already, there will likely be few “unexpecteds.” I hope you LOVE every minute of your home.
Congratulations 🙂
I find that most of the new expenses are in the realm of organizing stuff (oh, I must have a new shoe organizer since now I have a bifold closet door that I can’t hang my old shoe organizer on instead of a regular door, and where am I supposed to put all these pots and pans, and yikes, how did this person live without a window shade in this window??) and then…decorating. Even basic stuff runs up if you have to buy multiples, like discovering that none of your curtain rods are long enough to fit the new house windows, and thus you need 14 curtain rods at once. Decorating also includes paint and painting supplies–painting one room is generally $30 gallon of paint (and hopefully you tested a bunch of $5 samples first instead of buying the gallon of perfect paint that turned out to be eyeball-searingly wrong–plus another $20 in rollers, brushes, pans, liners, etc. These are generally one time expenditures, but they add up.
I’ve always put aside a couple hundred dollars for cosmetic crap I know we will need upon moving in. I always buy a new broom when we move, and new bathmats, etc. But beyond lawn care and higher utility bills, I don’t think there is a huge number of expenses you are missing.
How fun! don’t stress on the small stuff, it’s always there, no matter what! I have a couple of points:
– Bugs – quarterly is plenty of pesticide! If it has been sprayed monthly, the whole property is probably nuked into submission for now, any way. Ours was sprayed monthly before we bought it and we had NO bugs at all for the first three years we were here. No bad bugs, but also no good bugs for the gardens. I used one bottle of spray stuff in the first five years we were here on random pests, and the bugs returned slowly until a bunch of ants invaded the house last year. Now we have an organic bug service out quarterly, easypeasy.
-Tools, Cutting things, Yards – You are a Doctor’s Wife. Which means your sweetie is the Doctor. My Doctor sweetie doesn’t have time to maintain the yard and play with me and do all his ER job things. I am also incredibly afraid of what we would have to do if he cut (or worse) his hands while trimming the bushes and he couldn’t be the doctor because of a house/yard work injury. So we didn’t buy any big tools or a lawn mower when we left the apartment during residency – the money we save goes to the yard crew and handyman, and they are insured. It was hard at first on his sensibilties of “being the man” to hire out the work, but every year his job gets busier, and we’ve never regretted not buying a mower, trimmer, blower etc… I won’t let any family members on the roof. period! Too many good careful people get head injuries from an ‘easy repair’. (Mine hates heights, so that was easy.) Pay other people to do the things that they are trained to do and let them bring their own gear and insure themselves against injury.
Now that I’ve shared that nightmare with you, remember to breathe and be glad you are getting out of the apartments before your crazy neighbor burns your unit down. Wait, that was me. There is no feeling quite like being homeless and possessionless right before match to make you ready to own that first house!
We…don’t spray for bugs. And we don’t have bugs. (But it might be a geographical thing?)
We just spent $300 getting our sprinkler system fixed. It has been so dry here this summer that the ground has shifted and expanded and contracted a lot and all of the PVC pipes and fittings have been forced around underground and pulled apart and…$300 on the sprinkler system. NOT FUN.
But, it’s sort of like, you take it as it comes. And the simple truth is that we only fixed it because we could afford to. You certainly don’t NEED the sprinkler system to work. You can live just fine without. And, I think I lot of house crap is like that. For me, the benefit of being a homeowner far outweighs not. (And I mean in an emotional sense, not in a fiscal sense. I just like having MY house.)
Also, YAY!!!!!
There’s just no planning for it. Yet, somehow, it all works out. I would have NEVER believed it before the house. We spent weeks and months writing down all of our expenses, making excel spreadsheets, estimating, guessing, and anticipating. I freaked out, lost my mind, got it back again, then started all over. We finally took the plunge although I was in full panic mode. And somehow, it all worked out. I have no idea how. I honestly, do not. These things keep coming up but somehow we are affording it.
Congrats on the exciting news – even if it’s not officially official as of yet. I can totally get you tempering your excitement before the closing really happens. As for buying a house, I can only imagine what costs are involved! Those are good things to budget for when looking at a place – that’s exactly what I would do before looking a place, because I’d fall in love with one too.
In the first two years we ended up having to replace our roof (active leak), our siding (active leak), our heater ($600/mo heat bills due to age and inefficiency), dishwasher and have recently discovered one of our bathrooms is contributing to a leak in the garage (we originally thought it was just the roof/siding issues). We had a good housing inspector, but some of this stuff you can only take a best guess at cause and age – it’s just a crap shoot around when it will go. 25k and counting….in addition to our down payment.
Pay for a whole home warranty for 2-3 years. it will make you feel better about the big stuff – heater, AC, Range, garbage disposal, anything attached to the house really. Ours paid for its self for 2 years. we’re now a little less leery of the home owner bit.