One of my first paying jobs was helping my father clean and fix up his rental property each time renters moved out. I learned about the nature of people from rental agreements — lots of renters see a damage deposit as a free pass to do whatever they want to the place. I’d fixed a lot of damage in that house, so I figured I knew what to expect when my father decided he wanted to sell the house and I convinced him to sell it to me.
We hammered out the details over dinner — he’d put my name on the mortgage along with his so I could keep the 2.8% fixed rate, he wouldn’t help me financially with paying the mortgage or making repairs, and he would let me have the house for the remainder of the mortgage. His exact words, after we sealed the deal with a handshake and a hug, were “That house is your problem now.”
I moved in November of ’07 at age 22, armed to the teeth with cleaning supplies and air fresheners, with money set aside to start on all the renovations I wanted to make. A month of cleaning and airing the place out, and I was ready to start those renovations.
Then the pipes in the attic froze and burst — three times — until we found a good, honest plumber. Then I ran out of propane and needed to fill the 300 gallon tank; turns out that’s much more expensive in the winter. Then the septic tank overflowed and needed pumping. Then the pump to the well broke. Then I learned the term “property tax,” and finally accepted that I was not prepared for what I had undertaken.
Since that rocky start, I have become extremely organized. I fill up the propane tank every July and keep my eye on the gauge throughout the year. I have a date in 2012 to pump the septic tank. I’ve started a “shit happens” savings account. I even got a filing cabinet. And, despite his desire to see me deal with the house problems on my own, I am very grateful to my dad for answering every stupid question I’ve had and giving me a heads up on the property tax thing — even if he still makes fun of me for sputtering out the words, “Property tax? Doesn’t the government know how much money I’ve spent on this place already?”
Of course, if you’re not the type that thoroughly enjoys learning by trial and error, I recommend doing research before committing yourself to buying a home. Here’s what I needed to hear prior to getting my house:
10 tips for buying your first home from a Homie in the trenches
This should really be titled "things I wish someone had told me before we tried to buy a home." So, because no one told me,... Read more
Get a non-romanticized view of the home.
In other words, before getting caught up in what you can do, understand what needs to be done.
- Are there foundation cracks or leaky windows? In my case, the plumbing/propane/septic issues drained what I had saved for the fun stuff.
- Are the heaters and stove electric or propane? Is it running on a well or city water? It makes a difference with how you budget.
- When was the last time the pipes or water heater were replaced? Is this an expense you should be prepared to cover?
- How new are other features of the home? Is the roof old? What condition is the siding in?
- Can you deal with the ugly tile in the bathroom until you can definitely afford to renovate?
Look into the area
- What are the property taxes in the area?
- How much are utilities and what’s available in the area? (We are still waiting for super high speed internet.)
- How’s the neighborhood? Will the neighbor’s dog chase after you when you go on your morning jog? Do they have loud parties?
- Is there a home owner’s association? If so, what are their rules and regulations?
And, for your own sanity, start up a “shit happens” fund. Now.
Homies, when you bought your first place, what would have been helpful to know?
I know this thread is way old… But I just wanted to say, reading it made me feel just a little more sane about the past few months.
I bought in October at age 23, and five months later we are still building the big picture of how much home ownership really will cost us. We thought we had done our homework, that we had considered everything we’d possibly need to, but the truth is you can only prepare so much for what you simply don’t know.
In our case, what we didn’t know was that:
though 90% of the house is rock solid (literally), the one room that isn’t has had considerable termite damage that will need to be fixed asap;
when older oil tanks say there’s an 1/8 tank left, it’s actually empty (we too ran out of oil, during the coldest 3 nights we had last year);
absolutely everything your seller promises to leave must be in writing or it’s as good as gone (in our case, a painting of the original house, the only such picture we know to exist, left with the seller -the only living previous owner);
even well-built roofs leak, and they usually do so right after you’ve just finished dealing with one almost-catastrophe only to plop down on the sofa in frustration and look up to see a wet spot on the ceiling;
the amount of things that can be illegally and/or dangerously “fixed” in your house is a mathematical calculation of X average number of things to go wrong in one year, multiplied by Y years the owner lived there, times Z number of previous owners (in other words, infinite);
All I can say is, the home purchase process was the single most stressful, frustrating and EXPENSIVE experience we have ever had. And that being said, we are still happy with our new home. We have learned to keep an eye on certain things (oil and propane levels, things that leak, things that creak and/or sag, things that smell funny, things that generate electricity and/or heat), and we have developed a sense of humor about other things (just a week ago, Signore found a 1950s era Plymouth hubcap in the crawl space that was “supporting” a sagging floor joist and some of our duct work…). We have learned a hell of a lot and are still learning, but as usual, we’ll keep on keepin’ on. When it comes down to it, we own a home we can raise a family in, that is ten minutes down the road from our favorite place in the world, and we have wide open space (along with a surprising amount of ‘domesticated-feral’ cats) for neighbors. And we now know that the problems we’ve had, all things considered, are pretty par for the course.
Totes pinned this for future reference! Great piece to bubble back up on Facebook, OBH!
Thanks Everyone! We are saving/planning for a home purchase in the next couple of years, and practicing our hand (read: patience and energy) at DIYing on a very shoddily built rental from the 70’s (eek! popcorn ceilings and forest green wallpaper with little hearts <3 Sounds a lot cuter than it was).
We have proudly ripped out carpet in 3 rooms upstairs, laid vinyl faux wood planks (quite nice!!) in his office and our bedroom, and left my art studio raw plywood, but he gave me a serious closet reno (yay!). We cleaned, primed, and painted the bedroom (it was guh-ross from prior tenant), changed the fixtures and showerhead in the bathroom upstairs (which revealed rotting sheetrock behind shower tile, which we ripped out, replaced, and samesies for the downstairs bath where a leak was dripping on the electrical in the ceiling fan and we replaced sheetrock in the ceiling then re-tiled the upstairs shower), ripped out the half bath downstairs completely (wallpaper, medicine box, toilet), removed kitchen cabinets for open shelving, cleaned (biggest challenge), primed and painted the whole nasty ass bachelor's kitchen including cabinets, changed the light fixture, and are gearing up to rip out the linoleum, replace it with black and white checkered vinyl, recover our vintage dinette chairs, then repaint the whole downstairs and rip out carpeting on the stairs (shhh he doesn't know that last one is on the honey-do list yet!). Then we start on the backyard in Spring.
We have run into many hitches, and what a scummy nasty job it's been renovating this man-cave of two decades or so. Also SO exhausting. We both work long hours at full time jobs, and require yoga/gym to keep going. I have torn muscles in my back twice, requiring meds, and now go gentler on the ceiling work. My advice for DIYers on fixer-uppers (aside from being prepared for surprise expenses) is to have the right tools and support.
Proper chemical gloves, face masks, and glasses are not to be underestimated. Also, if you have tough grease, mildew, or other funk (possibly even cigarette tar, people above!) from prior tenants, I highly recommend boiling a pot of water (pots, actually – you'll need a rotation to keep the water hot), dumping a bunch of TSP in there, donning the temp-safe chem gloves, and scrubbing at it with the boiling TSP water like nobody's business. Never in my life (and I have had tons of janky rentals) have I had such smooth sailing getting the funk off.
Other best advice: find your motivation, cling to it for dear life, and don't admit defeat to your partner. Breaks are okay, but having a sense of responsibility to the other person is REALLY helpful in keeping going. I feel like with all the work my man has put into this, and with all the dissatisfaction I've expressed with the man-cave qualities, I OWE him to see this through. We started just before I moved in, in Oct. 2013 and are nearly done. I'd say that's some mileage! Good luck, you guys. They say renos are a make-or-break relationship litmus. We have definitely had our emotional challenges and f-you days, but damn it feels good to be a remodel gangsta. I think it's solidifying our faith in each other a lot too.
If you possibly can buy a home warranty, especially if you don’t have a big emergency fund and/or some of your house systems are old. Ours is about $35 a month it’s totally worth it. There’s a $75 “co-pay” for each specialist to visit but they cover the rest (like a $650 control panel for the washing machine). So, when the outlet in our basement that the sump pump was plug into shorted out it was $75 for the electrician to replace the outlet and $75 for the plumber to replace the sump pump. We still do a lot of the smaller fixes for ourselves because we can do it for less than $75 worth of parts and time but for the bigger things it’s a been great. Our current house has a 20 year old air conditioner and an even older furnace so I love knowing that when (not if!) the break or need to be replaced it’ll only cost us $75 each.
Adding my 2p to this very old thread 🙂
I second the previous comment about getting a warranty. We did not do this and then we found out that the plumbing under the sink was installed improperly and was dumping water into our subfloor (it has already destroyed the cabinet floor). We were able to get the pipes fixed for free (thank you, transferred plumbing warranty) but a home warranty would have enabled us to fix the jacked up floor, too.
We’ve been in our house for almost 2 months (not long, I know) and here’s what I have realized (so far):
1. Get a GREAT realtor. They will take care of everything. Ours still occasionally emails me to make sure everything is going well.
2. Try out different bedrooms. We totally thought we would sleep in the bigger room with two closets, but switched to the smaller front bedroom after my hubs’ allergies got worse. We both found that we just sleep better in the smaller room and it stays colder at night (really nice when you have 100+ degree summers!).
3. Others have said this, but seriously, pick your battles with your house. Could we live with the super crappy layout in our tiny kitchen? No. Can we live with the pink and brown office? For now.
4. Budget for all the crap you’ll need, now that you are no longer renting. For instance, we still don’t have a washer or dryer. It sucks. We lucked out in that we were able to get a free lawnmower and gardening tools, and we had the $$ for a really nice vacuum (we’ve got 3 pets who shed. a lot.).
5. Listen to your home inspector. They see a lot of crappy houses and will be honest with you about the crappy stuff in yours.
6. Consider your neighbors. Can you live with their junk? We have a badly-in-need-of-paint farmhouse to one side and several duplexes in our line of sight off the front of our house. You know what, though? The farmhouse folks are super quiet and have really cute part-time kids who pick the flowers off of our tulip tree (we let them). Most of the duplexes are full of young families who keep to themselves and there is maybe one really bad family (like, they’ve had a “yard sale” for the last week) but most of the time we don’t even see them. Our neighborhood is lower-income but it’s quiet, close to several things we love, and the house is great. For those reasons I can live with the few neighbors who don’t mow very often or paint their house.
Really, though, if you have a good realtor, they will be honest with you – we looked at a lot of drug-houses and places that should have been condemned and our realtor would just say, “I think we can do better.” She was right. I don’t think she thought we would end up in the neighborhood we did, especially since I wanted someplace closer to the city center and our friend’s houses, but we ended up with a bigger house, nicer yard and WAY bigger garage (plus lower taxes!) by buying in a suburb town outside of the regular city limits. I can still bike to work and we are super close to a library, grocery store, 2 microbreweries and several decent restaurants. What more could I want?
Just in case it helps – in our town (Boise) we would have been paying around $900/month plus utilities in rent for a small (under 1000sqft, and no garage) house that allows pets. Plus a pet deposit. After buying, our mortgage payment (plus taxes) is around $800/month (and utilities in ID are pretty cheap). We realized that even if we have to sell for less than we paid, we’re still getting some $$ back, which we never would with a rental. And no one cares if we get a dog (done!) or dig up and replace crappy plants (done!) or completely switch up the kitchen (and done!). So, good luck, home hunters!
Just because the house “passes” a home inspection doesn’t mean all problems have been found. I had my house inspected before buying it and again 13 years later before I sold it (I wanted to fix any problems before negotiating with a buyer:). It wasn’t until I was doing a final major cleaning and got zapped by an electric short circuit (yes, I touched the range and overhead vent at the same time). Just because they don’t find a problem doesn’t mean they don’t exist!