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.
Like the others said, try to do the stuff on your own. YouTube has helped me tons with that but I still don’t touch electrical work. :)
So many people who are mentally and cognitively bankrupt own houses. They never do any maintenance on them, or if they do, they never do it right. And yet, their houses aren’t (always) falling apart.
Houses are more sturdy than our anxieties convince us. Fix things little by little as they come, prioritize what comes first. Your house won’t fall apart or blow up. This is what I tell my wife when she gets nervous about something creaking.
Do a task everyday.
Making sure to keep working on a fixer-upper by doing something everyday will help reach the goal of maintaining rather than falling behind. Focus on things that can get worse faster. Leaks and shorts would be a top priority that should not wait. KNOW HOW TO TURN OFF MAIN WATER AND POWER. Make sure this can be done quickly.
Learn how to fix things in your house and it will give you the confidence to stop worrying about every little thing or sound.
Plus I find it’s so damn satisfying when you fix something, truly one of the greatest dopamine hits available
Start watching DIY vids and learning how to fix as much as you can yourself. Lowers repair bills and anxiety.
Invest in basic tools and have good relations with local repair persons, try to learn from them too as they fix stuffs. Hands on expertise is more helpful than theoretical how to knowledge. Also invest time in designing fail safe insect and paste management and plumbing. Bit of initial work usually pays off later.
Learn/Improve your DIY skills, most things that need fixing around the house are actually pretty simple to do yourself
This 100% also most general contractors are just scam artists that will do a very shit job or make the thing worse.
Remember this is a marathon and not a sprint. So think in long terms for fixing things. Even if you sell the house having something done correctly will increase the value. Fix something and maintain as best as possible to keep it working or as high value. This feels best if you do it room by room so you can enjoy the things you fixed.
I don’t see enough people mentioning this, but preventative maintenance can save you a lot of money.
Another thing I would recommend is to be familiar with the systems in your house, what fuel does your furnace use? What type of water heater do you have? how old are the fuses in the fuse box? Does your electrical panel have a surge protector? Do you have a water pump should your basement begin to flood? Do you have a generator panel? Knowing how these work can save you money on trouble shooting.
For example, if you live in an area with lots of squirrels, it might be worth putting up chicken wire on any entrance to the attic from the outdoors. Ex: air vents. If I would have done this, I would have saved $900 from chewed wires that could have started a fire.
Well. No, not really. Owning a house is just stressful, period. And sometimes really expensive things happen that you couldn’t foresee.
For ants, you want to get food-safe diatomaceous earth, and a bulb-style dispenser. If you can tell where they’re coming from, blow some diatomaceous earth in there. It’s completely safe for people and pets, but will kill insects. There’s also some non-toxic treatments for wood–Nissin Boracare, for instance–that will help prevent termite, ant, and powderpost beetle infestations.
Personally I haven’t had luck with diatomaceous earth and ants, they seemed willing to sacrifice a few ants to push a trail through the powder and then they were fine (I had to admire this strategy, something I would have never considered). I have had great luck with those ant baits that are a mix of sugar water and borax.
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.
Totally agree.
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.
You might want to look into Nolo’s articles & books https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/renters-rights
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).
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 :(
Ugh gotta repair my roof in a few weeks. At least it’s metal so cheap af… Damn snow pulled some flashing down.
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.
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.
Did you hear that? I feel like the toilet flushed funny
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.
Is this a typical feeling? I’ve been planning to buy a home soon…
I have have pretty bad anxiety. So it may me just me.
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.
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
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.
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.
Not for me. I… Don’t have leaks? I know where my water shutoff is if I need it.
I like owning.
Learn to fix these things.
I get ants turn up maybe once a year during summer. putting some ant killer powder down when they show up usually sorts them out.
DIY isn’t too hard, plenty of vids on youtube about how to do more or less everything.
I did all the laminate flooring in the top floor of my sisters house using nothing but youtube, a dremmel and a mitre saw.
I probably should have invested in a laminate cutter in hindsight but i got it done
To add to this, perfect is the enemy of good. You probably won’t do it as well as a professional, but having it done is better than not at all (since DIY is generally cheaper.
