Homeowners

And once the remodels have finished and you finally look at everything you've done and are looking forward to being able to sit back and enjoy it...the furnace breaks

I lost about 10-20 hours of gaming a week with my first house. Congrats, have fun and the shit never ends! When I bought my house I had to do this:

1. Rip down wallpaper throughout the whole house.
2. Paint every single wall
3. Rip up carpet in 4 rooms.
4. Sand, Stain, Refinished hardwood floors in 3 rooms.
5. Drywall damage walls.
6. Resod some parts of my yard.
7. Cut/Fit/Install new floor trim and install new crown molding in some places
8. Install a new fridge.
9. Powerwash the deck.
10. Install a BBQ.

This was in the space of 2 months. good times.

Saladus_sl said:

So I bought my first ever home almost two weeks ago with my fiance. Spent probably close to two months looking for a house we liked, and another month closing (which went relatively smooth). We've taken an extra month for rent just so we can slowly move things out of the apartment. Even with that extra month, the initial move in phase so far is quite time consuming and exhausting. Between painting, bringing things over, planning cable installation, furniture delivery, and planning to rent a U-haul, my head is starting to spin.

While I certainly expect to be busier now in general with owning a home, I imagine this initial phase will probably be the most involved when it comes to multitasking a million things at once. I'm looking forward to being able to relax at some point within the next month in my own home

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I'm looking into buying with my wife in the next 6 months. Did you explore FHA financing at all? We can't afford to put down 20% on the mortgage we want, so we are thinking about going FHA and paying the lower FHA insurance premium than PMI. Curious if you looked into it at all.

I out down 10% and tacked on an extra 4k on the loan and avoided PMI. The was only available to us bc our credit scores were so high.

Draegan_sl said:

I out down 10% and tacked on an extra 4k on the loan and avoided PMI. The was only available to us bc our credit scores were so high.

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So the extra 4k was financed as a sort of an up front PMI?

If you can't save up enough to put down at least 5-10%, you probably shouldn't own a house. There are a LOT of expenses that go with home ownership. If you can't save up a small amount, keep renting. Otherwise when that furnace goes out in the middle of winter or your refrigerator dies, you're going to be boned putting that kind of stuff on credit cards and slowly paying it off with no savings.

I guess the exception would be if you JUST got out of college and got a good job, your income just increased astronomically in the last year or less.

If you've been working the same job for a few years and you can't save up enough for 5-10% down, don't buy a house.

Tuco_sl said:

So the tile in my apartment kitchen floor needs to be replaced because the concrete under it is uneven. In order to replace it I had to call the apartment office TWICE because the first time they didn't pick up and I didn't feel like leaving a message. Apartment life is really hard...

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How do you smith car bumpers in an apartment?

Draegan_sl said:

I lost about 10-20 hours of gaming a week with my first house. Congrats, have fun and the shit never ends! When I bought my house I had to do this:

1. Rip down wallpaper throughout the whole house.
2. Paint every single wall
3. Rip up carpet in 4 rooms.
4. Sand, Stain, Refinished hardwood floors in 3 rooms.
5. Drywall damage walls.
6. Resod some parts of my yard.
7. Cut/Fit/Install new floor trim and install new crown molding in some places
8. Install a new fridge.
9. Powerwash the deck.
10. Install a BBQ.

This was in the space of 2 months. good times.

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Pffft.

We moved in with my wife's parents, basically. They are ~60 years old living in the fucking sticks and the house was big enough, even if a few hundred years old.

1. Ripped out all floors + shoveled out the dirt under the floorboards
2. Paint every single wall
3. had to have the floors evened out to prevent stuff from rolling to the middle of the room
4. drywall on 90% of walls
5. Drywall on ceilings
6. new electric installation
7. new water / waste installation
8. new heating installation
9. new roof including the roof timbering
10. new windows
11. new doors

every room was ripped down to its skeleton and remodeled up, basically. all while working full time. get home from work, change clothes, drive out, get dirty, drive home late at night, shower, eat, sleep...
and that was only for the easy stuff we could do ourselves like shovel dirt... we had to have lots of stuff done by professionals obviously.

ate up all of 2011 and I only finished the kid's room in may 2012 (we left that to store lots of stuff and it was "the dirty room" for that time).
shit looks like new all around now.

a brand new mcmansion would have been cheaper. but this has charisma.
and we have the attic to finish... somewhat stuck at the moment, waiting for someone to move a heating component. it will be glorious when we're done.

Anyone buy a house with a pool? If so, how do you feel about it?

Cutlery_sl said:

I hate it, wife loves it.

What do you want to know?

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I've read that it's somewhat expensive to maintain on a consistent basis, that true?