How much did you spend on housing last year???

[Enuff2Eat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingB Cook County Property tax $8200.68 Insurance $ 751.00 Cable TV $ 598.44 Disposal Service $ 236.40 Electric $ 1201.35 Gas $ 1001.32 HOA $ 276.00 Internet $ 602.04 Lawn Service $ 825.00 Telephone $ 602.52 Water/Sewer $ 533.63 Total 2010 $14828.38 Since RE'd this year, lawn service is eliminated. Changing telephone service saves about $200/year. Property tax is expected to go up this year and home insurance already went up to $778 (3.6% increase). I did not include maintenance and home improvement because they vary very much from year to year. Last year was $1550.

To be fair, I don't think adding phone and internet is part of your housing cost.

enuff

[Enuff2Eat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkinwood I think the % cost of housing (cash flow) as a percentage of total expenses is more useful. To the end of April 2011, we spent 44% of our expenses on housing. This is high - even for us - because of the work done to prep the house for sale. It sold at the end of May! The next 12 months are a transition time as we rent a rather expensive town home while we figure out where & what to buy.

No, I think the % cost doesn't do justice because if you retire your % housing budget will different from someone who is still working. This way we know how much "cold cash" you're spending to keep a roof over our head. My 2cents

enuff

[Sandhog]

All in monthly cost:
Rent-$1,200.00 for 450sf railroad apt.
Electric - $140.00
Gas - none
Water and sewer - none

Total $16,080.00/year

I'm saving over $25/mo. on gas for cooking since I canceled it. Only way to cook is to nuke the TV dinners, Tina's Burritos, and Chinese takeouts.

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha It looks to me like it costs a lot, either in time and effort or money or both. Would you share what it cost you to do this prep? Plus any staging if you did that?

Not walkinwood but I can give you my perceptions from selling 3 houses in the last 12 years.

About 14 years ago we had a house we put on the market and it just sat there. We had bought the house during construction and so all the colors were what we selected. I thought it was beautiful but it was not typical taste (we had deep purple carpet in the formal living room, for example).

Two years after that we really wanted to sell so we pulled up all the carpet and put in neutral beige. We painted over the wall paper that was very contemporary. We painted the entire house. We also had a real estate agent come in who basically told us what we needed to do to stage the house. We spent about $2500 on buying floral arrangements, candles, potpourri, a couple of rugs, etc. We spent a total of about $12k and then sold the house the first day to the 2nd person to look at it.

5 years ago we were putting our house up for sale. It was in a good neighborhood it was toward the lower end of prices. It was about 15 years ago and wasn't updated (had tile counters not granite for example). We had lived in the house 7 years with 3 kids so it badly needed painting and recarpeting which we did. We also replaced worn mini blinds with faux wood blinds, replaced some out of style brass light fixtures and generally freshened it up. I use the staging advice I had from selling the first house to myself stage it. That time we spent about $20k getting it ready. We did not do things like replace the tile counters or the older electric cooktop. We sold in about 3 months (we were in an OK, not great, market).

Early last year we decided to sell our house in a not good market and we knew it would be tough. In that case the house had ancient appliances (original construction) and we did replace them, repainted, recarpeted, refinished wood floors and a lot of other stuff. I posted already what that cost. We did use stagers for that the staging cost about $2500. It would have been probably half of that if DH and I hadn't been working full time at the time. We had the stagers do a lot of running of errands to buy things and meetings with contractors when we were working.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by golfnut Midpack, how do you get away with $1,510 in property taxes in Chicagoland. We're paying approx. $9,500.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rec7 You will have to tell us more Midpack. I don't live in Chicagoland but hear property taxes horror stories from others I know. I usually hear 7k to 18k and every thing in between.

NW Indiana. You might not consider it Chicagoland, but literally half the license plates in my neighborhood are Illinois (cheating on personal property taxes), folks who work somewhere in Chicago proper. It's a big metro area...

But look at what we pay for water/sewer, a complete ripoff. They find a way to tax/fee/charge you no matter where you live...

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingB You set your temps to 72 - 76F on summer?

We have a setback thermostat. When AC is on, setpoint is 72F when we are home and awake, setpoint is 76F when we are away (working) or asleep. Not that bad with fans.

Opposite (extreme) in winter, with warmer clothes.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsmeow Not walkinwood but I can give you my perceptions from selling 3 houses in the last 12 years. About 14 years ago we had a house we put on the market and it just sat there. We had bought the house during construction and so all the colors were what we selected. I thought it was beautiful but it was not typical taste (we had deep purple carpet in the formal living room, for example). Two years after that we really wanted to sell so we pulled up all the carpet and put in neutral beige. We painted over the wall paper that was very contemporary. We painted the entire house. We also had a real estate agent come in who basically told us what we needed to do to stage the house. We spent about $2500 on buying floral arrangements, candles, potpourri, a couple of rugs, etc. We spent a total of about $12k and then sold the house the first day to the 2nd person to look at it. 5 years ago we were putting our house up for sale. It was in a good neighborhood it was toward the lower end of prices. It was about 15 years ago and wasn't updated (had tile counters not granite for example). We had lived in the house 7 years with 3 kids so it badly needed painting and recarpeting which we did. We also replaced worn mini blinds with faux wood blinds, replaced some out of style brass light fixtures and generally freshened it up. I use the staging advice I had from selling the first house to myself stage it. That time we spent about $20k getting it ready. We did not do things like replace the tile counters or the older electric cooktop. We sold in about 3 months (we were in an OK, not great, market). Early last year we decided to sell our house in a not good market and we knew it would be tough. In that case the house had ancient appliances (original construction) and we did replace them, repainted, recarpeted, refinished wood floors and a lot of other stuff. I posted already what that cost. We did use stagers for that the staging cost about $2500. It would have been probably half of that if DH and I hadn't been working full time at the time. We had the stagers do a lot of running of errands to buy things and meetings with contractors when we were working.

Thank you K-Meow. I am really poor at searching on this forum (I am in awe of REW and others who always come up with a blast from the past) - could you give a link to your recent preps for selling? Also, as a very rough guess, do you think my $75,000 guess at the cost of the complete high end redo on the 1000 sqft condo is about right, or perhaps too high? (Having the work done)

I did find several threads in which you discussed this house sale, but none that mentioned the prep cost, so I must not have found the right one.

Ha

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha Thank you K-Meow. I am really poor at searching on this forum (I am in awe of REW and others who always come up with a blast from the past) - could you give a link to your recent preps for selling? Also, as a very rough guess, do you think my $75,000 guess at the cost of the complete high end redo on the 1000 sqft condo is about right, or perhaps too high? (Having the work done) I did find several threads in which you discussed this house sale, but none that mentioned the prep cost, so I must not have found the right one. Ha

I mentioned it in this thread. It is about $32k. That did include hauling away stuff we didn't need/couldn't take with us to much smaller house that we got rid of through 1 800 Got Junk and a rental where we rented some furniture we were keeping but took out while the house was listed.

Some things we did:

New cooktop
New Oven
Granite counter replaced cultured marble in master bath (I thought that would be expensive but it was actually $600).
New sinks in master bath (about $100 each)
Granite counter replaced cultured marble in half bath with new sink
New light fixture in half bath
Painted throughout
New carpet
Refinished wood floors
Refinished some doors
Staging
Replaced cultured marble counter/sinks in kid's bath

I'm sure there was other stuff but that is what comes to mind.

As far as spending $75k...could happen. Just depends on what you think you need to do and how much you think you will get back on it and depends on the price range. There were other things we could have done (replaced the slate flooring downstairs that people didn't like for example) but it was just cost prohibitive and I wasn't sure we would get a lot of bang for the buck. We focused on doing things that like painting/carpeting due to the old being worn and things that were outdated and at the end of useful life (cooktop and oven).

It also depends on who you use to do the work. We got one quote for a large portion of the work that was almost twice the quote of the person who we hired to do the work (who did a great job).

[Gumby]

I'll bite:

$ 18,816 Mortgage P&I ($13,839 P and $4,977 I)
$ 8,589 Real Property Tax
$ 2,806 Homeowners Insurance
$ 316 Umbrella Ins.
$ 2,897 Heating Oil
$ 1,316 Electric
$ 227 Natural Gas
$ 471 Water
$ 316 Landline phone
$ 6,849 Home improvement and repairs

$ 41,287 Total ($22,471 w/o mortgage)

We were prepaying on the mortgage until we refinanced in November. I also had a big garage improvement project (fancy wall cabinets, workbench, rolling tool chest, etc.), which accounted for well over 1/2 of that item. I think on an ongoing basis, we can get by on $20k for housing (2011 dollars) in retirement (i.e - after the mortgage is paid off).

[pimpmyretirement]

Mortgage Principal 12000
Mortgage Interest 9800
Property Taxes 4300
Assessments 2500
Electric 1000
House Keeper 1000
Natural Gas 700
Home Insurance 660
Water 600
Garbage 150
ANNUAL TOTAL 32710

Two bedroom 1600 sq. ft. town house in Chicago suburbs, with a basement and two car garage. This is our first home, bought just after the peak of the real estate market. Got in at 310k, worth about 225k now.

I now know I could do cheaper while being happy. Costs of moving make the difference small enough that it's not worth the change right now.

Long term would like to be in a small 2 bedroom ranch house, in an area with no assessments and low property taxes. It will be key to early financial independence.

[wolfbay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by youbet Did you have to make any upfront investment to achieve this? If so, how much do you have tied up in housing in order to achieve this low annual expense level?

We always LBYM and saved a large part of our income before retirement. We have no debt and paid cash for our house. It's very well insulated and we planned on solar(south facing roof at correct angle for our latitude.) The main additional cost was a very expensive off grid PV solar system and solar hot water heater.The large system was$ 60, 000. However with state and Federal rebates we paid 20000. A large expense but eventually it will pay for itself especially if utility rates continue to increase as they probably will.
Also living in a low tax area helps.

[FreeAtLast]

Mortgage -0-
Taxes 3300
Electricity 4500
Water 800
Garbage 400
DirectTV 1000
Comcast 850
ATT 600
Insurance 2800
Flood Ins. 500
Pest Control 180

Total 14,930
This does not include repairs /maintenance/housekeeper which is at least $6000

[golfnut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack NW Indiana. You might not consider it Chicagoland, but literally half the license plates in my neighborhood are Illinois (cheating on personal property taxes), folks who work somewhere in Chicago proper. It's a big metro area... But look at what we pay for water/sewer, a complete ripoff. They find a way to tax/fee/charge you no matter where you live...

Thanks Midpack, We live in DuPage County and I have been thinking about moving to NW Indiana for the cheaper property taxes. Can you recommend any towns ?? My inlaws have a summer getaway place near Plymouth.

[Enuff2Eat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeAtLast Mortgage -0- Taxes 3300 Electricity 4500 Water 800 Garbage 400 DirectTV 1000 Comcast 850 ATT 600 Insurance 2800 Flood Ins. 500 Pest Control 180 Total 14,930 This does not include repairs /maintenance/housekeeper which is at least $6000

Wow, that's seem high even for zero mortgage. You're paying quite a bit for communication fee TV, Comcast and ATT ... and also high on insurance too.

A few of the folks here paying over $20k to keep a roof over there head. IMO, that's too much... it's like making $60k a year and pay half of after tax money on just housing.

enuff

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enuff2Eat Wow, that's seem high even for zero mortgage. You're paying quite a bit for communication fee TV, Comcast and ATT ... and also high on insurance too. A few of the folks here paying over $20k to keep a roof over there head. IMO, that's too much... it's like making $60k a year and pay half of after tax money on just housing. enuff

We have forum members with many different financial capabilities. It might seem like too much for you, or for me, to spend $20K per year on a house, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the wealthy and famous like Donald Trump, Mick Jagger, or Bill Clinton spend quite a bit more than that on housing. While we may not have Trump, Jagger, and Clinton posting here some of our members have incomes that are pretty amazing to me.

[Nords]

We just refinanced into a new 30-year 3.625% fixed, so this year we'll pay:
$17,348 mortgage P&I

Last year's other numbers are
$15,493 mortgage interest
$5,868 mortgage principal
$2,397 property tax
$980 homeowner's insurance
$907 umbrella liability
$402 homeowner's association fees
$302 electric (photovoltaic array and net metering)
$1112 water/sewer (and it's going up 10-20% this year!)
$404 phone
$250 home improvement
$28,115

No heat or A/C in our house... just tradewinds and ceiling fans.

We're getting ready to rip the familyroom apart for renovations (including a new roof) so this year's spending will probably be double last year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan Wow. We waited until they got married. I suppose that has to be a judgment call...

Sorry, I was using milspeak.

When she graduates and gets her commission and gets ordered to her first duty station, she's entitled to a small household-goods shipment from her home of record (Hawaii) to that duty station. I think it's something like 600-1000 pounds... just enough for a bed and a room or two of furniture. It'll work out to one heckuva second-hand housewarming present. But that depends on where she goes in 2014, because the housing situation is a lot different in Yokosuka than in Norfolk.

We got the idea from another military family. Spouse worked with an officer who was planning to retire from that tour and live in their current home "forever". Their daughter married an active-duty guy. When she and her new spouse transferred off the island (with a full household goods shipping weight allowance of at least 10,000 pounds) they pretty much cleaned Mom & Dad out of their furniture, which had already survived 20 years and about a dozen military moves. They didn't have to worry about damage or theft or hardly even insurance. Then Mom & Dad went shopping for their house of brand-new retirement furniture, so everybody won!

[pimpmyretirement]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enuff2Eat Wow, that's seem high even for zero mortgage. You're paying quite a bit for communication fee TV, Comcast and ATT ... and also high on insurance too. A few of the folks here paying over $20k to keep a roof over there head. IMO, that's too much... it's like making $60k a year and pay half of after tax money on just housing. enuff

Everytime I scan my budget, my housing costs tick me off. Here I am, trying to figure out how to eat on $30 a week, and I watch $32k a year going to my housing.

So I break things down...

In my area (where I grew up, by jobs, friends, and family), the cheapest non-condo housing in a decent neighborhood starts around $150k, with property taxes of around $3500 a year. If I assume the cost of capital is about 4%, that's $9500 a year to start. I don't think it's a stretch to say another $5500 would go to utilities, maintenance, insurance. etc. Especially considering these inexpensive homes are older.

So that gives a $15k a year floor for housing. Then I look at my $32k expense and see $12k is going to principal. In theory I get that money back when I sell. So I'm really dropping about $20k a year.

This means I've got a $5k per year difference between the floor price and what I pay. To change homes would cost me around $15k, meaning a best case 3 year payback period. However, there are probably hidden expenses I don't know about, so let's assume a 4 year payback period.

So then it becomes, how long will I stay put in the new house? Let's say it's 10 years until I am FI and ready to move away from where the jobs are. I've got 6 years clearing an extra $5k a year after the payback period, so $30k total.

$30k over 10 years? That's not much payout for the level of effort required to move, especially considering the risk of other life events forcing another move.

Add in the good chance I'd be downsizing at the bottom of the real estate market, and I say screw it. I close my budget spreadsheet and go cook my lentils.

A return to apartment living could do substantially better, yielding $60 - $75k over those 10 years. But, I save that in a year and it's only going up. Am I willing to work an extra year to not live in an apartment for 10? Absolutely.

I do think a downsize upon FIRE is key to early financial freedom.

[walkinwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enuff2Eat No, I think the % cost doesn't do justice because if you retire your % housing budget will different from someone who is still working. This way we know how much "cold cash" you're spending to keep a roof over our head. My 2cents enuff

This argument works both ways.

You don't live like I do or where I do. If I were to buy a house in Denver, I would pay 16%-20% of the property tax that I payed in NJ. So, how would knowing what I spent in NJ help me in Denver?

I find the percentages more useful, but I also I do not feel comfortable giving actual $ amounts.

On the other hand, it is easy to figure your specific housing costs, and if you know the percentage that most people spend on housing, you could work out what your annual budget should be, or if you're spending too much or too little on housing.

[Enuff2Eat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkinwood This argument works both ways. You don't live like I do or where I do. If I were to buy a house in Denver, I would pay 16%-20% of the property tax that I payed in NJ. So, how would knowing what I spent in NJ help me in Denver? I find the percentages more useful, but I also I do not feel comfortable giving actual $ amounts. On the other hand, it is easy to figure your specific housing costs, and if you know the percentage that most people spend on housing, you could work out what your annual budget should be, or if you're spending too much or too little on housing.

I am not sure if I am 100% agree with you. "You don't live like I do or where I do" Everyone have a different life style. For example, retire in Thailand at $1500/mon vs. retire in San Fransico at $5500/mon. Or I pay $3000/yr for transporatation vs. someone else paying $6000/yr. Of course, model,life style and location will be different. I am just trying to compare the US Dollar Cold Cash for housing.

Also, "I do not feel comfortable giving actual $ amounts". I agree with that part, it's quite dangerous to put real number out there but I am hoping that noone here know who I am and we all remain "faceless". :-)

enuff

[Skimmer]

MOEMG - I'm with you on taxes and insurance. I'm in Florida and apparently we are getting ripped off down here. I'm paying over $4k in property taxes for an 1100 square foot house on the water. Plus about $2k in Homeowner's insurance. Guess we're still paying for all those hurricanes years ago.