Jenni and I have always rented our various homes since we were married in 1992. Apartments, town homes, mobile homes, single family homes. Germany, New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, etc. Always a renter, never a buyer be.
Until last November, that is, when we closed on our first purchased home. Not that you were doing the math, but that’s 32 years of paying rent. I’m not going to get into the details in this post about why we’ve always rented, but it’s a little bit scary to think about how much money we’ve paid to other people without actually owning any property. Yikes.
It’s nice to own our home. No, it’s great to own our home. let me count the reasons:
- No landlord to please; i.e., why do you have a metal table on the porch?
- Our money isn’t padding someone else’s bank account.
- We can do whatever we want; plant a garden, paint the porch, rip out the drywall, etc.
- The simple satisfaction of checking the “own” box on tax and bank documents that ask if we own or rent.
Of course, there are also things about owning a home that are less than great:
- Property taxes (although I imagine our previous landlords factored that into our rent — if they were smart, anyway)
- We can’t just pick up and move on a whim. Even an end-of lease whim.
- If something breaks, we have to fix it.
Let’s talk about that last one. We did have our home inspected before we purchased it. So we can pat ourselves on the back for not being completely stupid. Although we’ve since un-patted ourselves for not realizing that the whole home inspection process is kind of like sniffing a t-shirt you found on the floor to see if it’s wearable.* It might be at first sniff. Later in the afternoon, you discover odors that cause you dismay.
*Of course I would never do this. I’ve only heard…accounts of other… friends who… I’ve seen it on — okay, yes, I totally do this.
We also knew there were a few things we were going to want to fix or upgrade after moving in. And, there were some surprises. Surprises are not good, because they eat at the budget you set aside for things you just want to do. For example, as we were confidently planning how we would install a drop ceiling in my basement office, the 76-year old sewer pipe had other plans. As in, “I think 2024 would be a good year to let these tree roots completely ravage me while I take a short break from delivering your poop to the city.” So the drop ceiling can wait, because poop extraction is decidedly more important.
Then came the bats. You probably wouldn’t believe that getting rid of bats would cost more than a really nice-looking used Buick, but you would be wrong.
But wait! There’s more!
We’ve got shower leaks, basement leaks, and sinking concrete slabs in the driveway and garage to sweeten the deal.
If you’ve read anything I’ve written so far, you probably won’t be surprised that I created a spreadsheet detailing the costs of our repair and restore projects. Of course I did.
A few of these are “wants” and not “needs,” like the… the… and the… well, I mean where the bathroom… oh hell. It’s all needs.
Nine months after closing, we’re in for about $74,282 in repair/replacement/remodel costs. And we don’t even get a baby.
I’m not complaining. Okay, I am complaining. But not just complaining-complaining, I’m factoring in the joy that comes from the idea that this is all ours to do as we please. Yes, we have to install a bathtub upstairs because it’s only been a tiny cubicle shower for several decades. But, nobody is telling us what kind of bathtub we need to put in. Or who will do the work.
Yes, the AC will quite possibly fail next summer. But we get to pick the new one — or decide that we don’t really need to do it at all. Which is a choice we never had as renters.
Plus, there are a lot of projects that need doing which we’ll take on ourselves. Ripping out drywall can be very satisfying, not to mention the savings in labor costs — and again, the fact that some landlord isn’t going to freak the hell out.
There are costs we didn’t anticipate when we bought our first home. True. But we plan to be here for several decades, so the money and time we put in now will be very satisfying when we’re in our 80s. We’ll likely look back on this time and think, Wow, I’m really glad we drank all those cocktails every night.
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