Reflecting on My Homeownership Mistakes
As I sit here eating my corndog {I know – ew} 10 minutes before I have to leave for my volleyball game {double-ew: jumping up and down on with a stomach full of corndog}, I’m reflecting on all of the decisions and surprises we have had when owning property. I thought I’d just jot them down really quickly to see if others agree.
- Clouded Judgement: Looking for houses can get so exciting that we sometimes overlook important features: square footage, number of bathrooms, and above all, price. It’s easy to get talked into paying a higher price than you had initially set as your budget. Through our three home purchases, we stayed WELL below our budget. This was one of the few things that I know we did RIGHT.
- The neighborhood: When we first moved to Sacramento, we hadn’t visited there longer than a weekend. We really didn’t know anything about the different neighborhoods. We were feeling like we couldn’t wait to buy the house. In retrospect, we probably should have rented for a few months to get to know the areas before we purchased.
- DIY home renovating: Two words-LAME. I’m a painter, and I have no problem painting, or even some light tile work, but professional work is always better. It goes quicker, there is less mess, it looks better and is more attractive to the next potential buyer than your shoddy attempt.
- Know EVERYTHING about your loan: Seemingly impossible, but it’s very important to ask all the important questions about your loan. What are the terms? Does it adjust? How many points will it cost? Is there a prepayment penalty? There is a steep learning curve with loans, especially during the craziness of the most recent housing market crash, where my husband and I spent time paying 11% on our ARM loan. Ouch.
- Keep track of ALL your receipts: If your home becomes a rental property and then is sold, you can write off ALL those major improvements. Keep the proof!
Well, I know we’ve made PLENTY of mistakes with our three properties, but these are the few that come to mind now.
Let me know you stopped by »
Good things to think about…With the knowing your loan..We are actually meeting with our realtor today to ask few questions and to get some clarification..Looking forward to being educated!
Mmm…corndog. I’d agree on all counts, but I take slight exception to the DIY. I fully agree that professional is always better, but don’t forget that part of the fun of owning a home can be working on it. That being said, I’ve learned that there are some things I will never do myself again (cough… tiling & painting), but plenty that I think I can do well enough that a small error may be worth it to me to save a few bucks. Of course you’ll never really know unless you try I guess. I will say this, if you are going to DIY, then GO SLOW and do it right the first time. Read/Learn as much as you can first and fix any mistakes right away. You may tell yourself that you’ll come back to it later but let me tell you, I’ve got about 10 things around the house that I’ve said that about, and they’re still unfixed a year later, wish I did it right away.
This is great advice, especially the get to know the neighborhood part. When I moved to Chicago I almost ended up living an hour outside of downtown by not checking with locals and going only by Craigs List leads.