Surprise costs of buying your first house? - Page 2

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by Jodie

I thought of hiring someone to clean it before moving in, but I think me and a friend of mine will go over after we close and knock it out in a couple hours.

I'd either buy (we use ours at least once a month) or rent a steam cleaner if you are not replacing the carpet.

[jeliphish]

Hot water heater busted the first day we moved in.
Tore up carpet (IN BATHROOM???? gross) which "aggravated" a slow leak in the sink piping. Turned into an $850 water bill.

Yeah- our home inspector should have been burned at the stake.

I would suggest having a 1 to 2 thousand emergency fund just in case.

[1growingsprout]

OP I noticed you are pgnt. That has a whole nother bunch of expenses added to the new house... New baby and new house that can get $$...

From my experience with a new baby you dont want the old carpet, you also want to make sure everything is 'super clean'. Most of my kids have asthma so we get the air ducts cleaned every year thats $$. Also we need to replace the air filters MONTHLY with the 20$ 'filtrete' allergen brand. That adds up too.

I have a carpet steam cleaner that I use monthly as well on the area rugs but everything else is wood. Invest a couple hundred in a good steamer/deep cleaner.

Depending on where you live you either have a massive winter heating bill or a massive summer a/c bill. Because we live in the desert we just has professional shade installed in the backyard (smiliar to what you see at daycares and playgrounds).

You also need homeowners insurance, your auto insurance rates may change too.

We love our home, we are debt free but loooooordy the daily and monthly 'little things' sure do add up.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by FondestBianca

~Agent fees. Agents do not charge you until you have purchased and closed on your home reguardless of how long you search and how much work they do for you. your agent will explain this to you and how they are to be paid. They are paid according to the final sale price of the home. It's a flat percentage rate in most cases. Agent fees are either included in your loan (depending on what kind of loan you get) or paid out of pocket by you.

(Usually your esgrow account is included as part of your monthly mortgage payment and will go to pay your yearly property taxes so you don't have to worry about coming up with that in the middle of the year out of your pocket)

Agent fees are entirely dependent upon location. Here it's by county, in some counties the seller pays all agent fees, and in some the buyer pays, and in some it's split 50/50. So be sure you ask what the standard is where you are. Sometimes it's even possible to write it into your contract... if you're in a location where buyer usually pays, ask your agent to write into the contract that the seller pays. Some sellers will go for it, some will counter-offer.

And "escrow" accounts - there is nothing "usual" about this, unless you are coming in with nothing down. Some mortgage companies will require impound accounts on all loans, and some make them completely optional. Ask. We don't have them because we'd rather have the use of our money for the year, but if coming up with the lump sum or saving up for it would be a problem, ask for them. It does increase your monthly payment amount by 1/12 of the annual costs of taxes + insurance, but lots of people find that useful.

Originally Posted by elsie

One thing I would suggest as well is looking into a homebuyers warranty. Anyone can buy one, they usually cost $400 or so a year. It covers most of the wear and tear on big ticket items.

Before buying a home warranty, do your research. There are dozens of websites dedicated to reviews of the different home warranty companies. Some of them will do what they advertise, and some of them will just rip you off. So research, research, research.

[mnnice]

Our previous house was new construction and in a municipality with hard, hard water. I think we only lived there like three weeks before we bought a water softener. No one has a water softener around here unless they live in the country and have a well.

[Belleweather]

Also, keep in mind that in this realty climate a TON of this stuff is negotiable to a motivated buyer, and that for first time homeowners there are a lot of federal, state and local programs designed to get people into houses.

We're looking at buying our first home in the next 8-12 months. We've been offered several programs to cover downpayments, inspection fees, and closing costs as well as basic repairs that might need to be undertaken before we move in. Be sure you're contacting your city housing authority. In our state, the community investment office has counsellors that will help you work through what programs are available, what your needs are, and negotiate with sellers without cost to you.

Although the houses we're looking at are almost all foreclosures and "as-is" sales, we've had luck negotiating with banks and corporate owners on some of the fees -- especially since the houses we're looking at have been winterized and need the utilities turned on and dewinterization before they can be inspected.

... now if we could just find a house that we wanted to BUY we'd be all set! Grrr. Arrrgh.

[Sk8ermaiden]

Originally Posted by jeliphish

I would suggest having a 1 to 2 thousand emergency fund just in case.

Yes, at least. During our inspection all our plumbing worked fine, but within a week there was a sewage lake in our backyard and our toilets wouldn't flush. The problem was underground in our backyard. If I didn't have such a handy DH and FIL, who spent hours and hours fixing it for us, it would have been over a grand easy.

[*MamaJen*]

Houses are frickin' expensive. Honestly, I wish I was still renting. We got an inspection, of course, but it didn't pick up the $3,000 plumbing repair job. The foundation was fixed before we bought it, but there's another $1,500 in repairs not covered that are needed now. All the appliances are going out, both the ones the house came with and the old washer and drier of DP. The fence is rotting out -- I knew it would need to be replaces, but I didn't realize it would cost $5,000 to fence a third-acre lot.
I know it's a good long-term investment, like over the course of 20 years, but month to month it's costly. And it's a time suck just doing all the maintenance and upkeep. DP -- well, XDP as of a couple weeks ago -- isn't big on doing house upkeep, and I think that's one of the things that strained the relationship.
Now I'm planning on going to grad school next year and I'll want to move, just three years after buying the house. I would have been so much better off renting.

[SunRise]

Be prepared for an increase to your monthly payment due to property taxes ... Once you buy, the property tax will probably increase based on the new value of property.

Mine increased approximately $120 with in a year (once due to school tax and secondly due to property tax reassessment).

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by elsie

One thing I would suggest as well is looking into a homebuyers warranty. Anyone can buy one, they usually cost $400 or so a year. It covers most of the wear and tear on big ticket items. It fixed our AC during the first heatwave of a blazing summer and our furnace during the first cold snap. Even with an inspection, it is always hard to tell how much life these things have left in them until you really need to use them. Without the warranty, it would have cost a few thousand to have both things fixed instead of the $90 copay. In another house we bought the warranty, but nothing needed to be fixed We still felt good about it because it is always a risk of not knowing completely what you are getting into until you notice every creak and noise is your responsibility.

Yes, yes, yes!! We insisted on this as part of the sales agreement, so the sellers covered it for the first year. I happened to luck out and be doing some contract work with a realtor when we bought our house (how lucky is that?) and she said she always insisted her buyers get one of these and recommended Old Republic. I can't tell you how much they saved us! In that first year the hot water heater died, the heating element in the oven went out (Jenn-Aire = $$), the motor went out in the a/c, and the circuit board went out on the dishwasher! The warranty cost the sellers about $350 or so. Our out of pocket costs were $50 per incident. The total cost of the repairs came to around $1500!

Also be aware that sellers LIE if it's not in writing! After we'd closed the deal, when we already HAD the house, I was checking out some things while the previous owner was here to move out the last of the stuff. I asked him about some things - just heads up kind of stuff. Every word that came out of that man's mouth was a lie - oh no, the sewer has never backed up (every 6 months for 2 yrs until the city did sewer work we had people out here to unclog it at $125 a pop), sure, we had the wall professionally reinforced and fixed (clearly they did no such thing!), there's only hardwood under the carpets in the bedrooms and hall (um, then what's this beautiful stuff we found under the disgusting living room carpet??). Plus you have to deal with the SPO syndrome - stupid previous owner. Every time we do anything to the house we end up cursing his name because if he did it, it was done half baked and incorrectly. Sigh.

[panamama]

i only skimmed the replies, so apologies if these things have already been said but:

-guttter maintenance!
i thought i was on top of most of the new-to-me house stuff when i got mine, but for whatever reason, gutter cleaning never occured to me. ever! i had been in the house a few years when i had a pretty significant leak that i thought was the window and/or roof, but in the course of the repair it was found to be caused by backed-up gutters that caused the water to run off the wrong way (into the wall)! that was an expensive lesson. now i get them cleaned once or twice a year (which is what i was supposed to be doing all along), and am considering getting the gutter covers too.

-'no cost above appraisal/inspection' clause in offer contract
i'm sure i'm not using the exact/correct legal terminology, but it's basically a clause you have the lawyer put into your offer/contract. it's so that when you have the appraisal and/or inspection done on the house, you don't pay more than it appraises for or more than what you offered less repairs that come up in an inspection. for example, say you made an offer of $350k and the appraisal came back at only $330k. the clause would make it so you are not bound to the $350k or anything above $330k. ditto for inspection. again say you offered $350k but the inspector found that the home needs $20k in repairs. the clause saves you again. my realtor told me about this and i tell EVEYRONE i know who's considering homebuying b/c it is a a lifesaver!!!

good luck mama!

oh, p.s. i saw a couple ppl mentioned window treatments. yeah...i was shccked at how much they can be. we had those temporary paper blinds from home depot for a couple years. if you are [or know someone who is] handy, you can get some basic stuff up for cheap, though. target, and the like.

[polyhymnia]

Check out this thread

http://mothering.com/discussions/sho....php?t=1060416

I got lots of great advice!

[Sk8ermaiden]

You don't have to pay someone to clean your gutters though. If you know someone with a tall ladder (we borrowed from FIL) it just takes an afternoon. DH did our two-story last Saturday.

That's a big thought though too. Are you going to paint your own home, cut your own grass, clean your own gutters, etc, or are you going to pay someone to do them for you? Those costs add up.

[cschick]

Originally Posted by 1growingsprout

From my experience with a new baby you dont want the old carpet, you also want to make sure everything is 'super clean'. Most of my kids have asthma so we get the air ducts cleaned every year thats $$. Also we need to replace the air filters MONTHLY with the 20$ 'filtrete' allergen brand. That adds up too.

I wouldn't replace the old carpet with new, though. The amount of toxins that new carpeting outgasses in the first couple of months is amazing.

[Lisa1970]

Much higher utility bills. Bills you never had before. Cost of any and every repair, right down to painting things and lawn maintenance and so on. Then, just when you get a raise at work, the payment goes up due to taxes and such. So you never get away from being house poor it seems.

[Pogo0685]

I just bought my first house in October, the day we closed we came to clean the house to move in (I was pregnant and wanted out of my ghetto rental) the furnace went out, we had a home inspection he said it would last another 5 years, so that was about $1,000. We had to put in a fence for our dogs, that was another $500, and its a very small yard we have to make it bigger this summer and its going to cost another $800. We also have to haul water in so we had to buy a water tank and a trailer, and another water tank for my dads truck that we are borrowing because the jeep we bought to haul water with the trailer needed $5,000 worth of work to get it running right so that was about $7,000 in costs and the jeep doesn't even run yet. All winter as I got closer to my due date our pipes kept freezing at least once a week. Without my dad and brother we would have had to call a plumber at least 7 times, that would have added up.

As for utilities, when we were in the city we had regular gas lines, now out here in the country we are on propane, the bill is at least $350 a month where as before it was like $80. We cant get cable or dsl internet out here so we have satellite internet that's $90 a month. So I guess you just gotta look at every possible cost that might arise. I know some of the PP have said some of the same things, I just wanted to tell you my experience because we had an extra $7,000 in savings and now its all gone and we are living on credit cards. I am very happy we bought the house though and wouldn't change a thing because my son has a wonderful house to grow up in. Also me and DH both took paycuts this year because the economy, I now make about $600 less a month than I did and that hurts hard when that's more than half of the house payment. Anyway I hope that help you!