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

[haha]

Housing is an emotional things. In a way, it's a bragging right just like a new car. The more money you spend on it, the more you can brag about it.
enuff

I doubt that applies to people here. Houses just cost a lot, or you spend all your free time fixing and improving.

One of the posts above mentions keeping his house to the level at which he bought it. This makes sense; because unless you happen to sell in a very hot market it is going to be very hard to sell a house with an older style kitchen, bathroom, etc.

It is like building a house part by part sourced from Home Depot, and that is not cheap!

Ha

 

[golfnut]

2270 sqft, 4bed/2½bath 2-story, 2 people

I categorize differently, but following the OP's lead:

Mortgage	$0
Prop Tax	$1510
Home Insur	$1387
Gas & Elec	$1311	thermostat 61-65°F winter, 72-76°F summer!!!
Bath Remodel	$1260	more expense in 2011
Water/Sewer	$1245	yes, we're getting ripped off
HOA	$850	Grrrrrrrr...
Other maint & repairs	$654
Trash collection	$246
Lawncare	$212	we do all we can ourselves
TOTAL	$8515

Our gas & electric would be double were it not for our aggressive thermostat settings, using setback temps when we're not home.

Next house will be smaller, more energy efficient with no HOA...

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

Golfnut

 

[Chickadee]

Rent 3660 (heat/water included)
Parking space 132
Renter's Insurance 105
Electricity 480
Telephone (landline) 205
Cable Internet 190
Total 4772

In a city in southeast Wisconsin, in a moderately priced and safe area, sharing space with another person, which keeps costs low. This helps me save almost 49% of my gross income right now.

 

[youbet]

We're probably on the low end of the range for housing costs.
mortgage 0
insurance 960
property tax on 121 acres and2520square ft under roof 560
utilities 0 ( off grid solar)
propane 1200
water 0 -well
garbage 120
total$ 2840

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?

 

[KingB]

Gas & Elec|$1311|thermostat 61-65°F winter, 72-76°F summer!!!|

Our gas & electric would be double were it not for our aggressive thermostat settings, using setback temps when we're not home.

Next house will be smaller, more energy efficient with no HOA...

You set your temps to 72 - 76F on summer?

 

[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.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

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

Golfnut

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.

 

[JDARNELL]

I did a quick back of the envelope calculation and it seems like my cost to run the place (with OC of equity) is about $2500 a month. If the place was paid for you could make the case that its the same however the OC is higher and the out of pocket it lower. (Smoke and mirrors) However, I think there is some implied benefit here with not having to produce the income to cover part of the out of pocket costs if it was paid for. Now my tax situation changes and I no longer have to produce $18K after tax to pay each month. Translation I could make less money and retire earlier.

In all fairness if I was really trying to reduce costs I could move into one of my townhouses and in this case the total cost (including OC) would be about $750 a month. CINC house would not go for that not and it really doesn't make sense with two kids moving to our their teen years. We like the room for now. Once they move on we will see. Of course I am sure there is an extra cost here that I would have to pay to convince her.

I must admit I do get tired of having to take care of a place.

Tomcat98

 

[Nords]

CINC house would not go for that not and it really doesn't make sense with two kids moving to our their teen years. We like the room for now. Once they move on we will see. Of course I am sure there is an extra cost here that I would have to pay to convince her.

It makes no empty-nester sense to have space for the kids to return to the nest... and when our kid gets "her first permanent-change-of-station orders", we're going to get rid of all her possessions left behind, too.

 

[frayne]

Approx $5K a year for a five year old $160K, paid for, 1800 sq. ft. house in northern Georgia. That covers, property tax, utilities, insurance, and maintenance.

 

[Texas Proud]

Total including mortgage payments $25,583....

I do not include cable as some have...

Add about $35K to that for the previous year (down payment on the house)...

 

[kcowan]

...Last month our total expenses were under $6000. Before we spent more than that just on housing (currently in a rental at $1500 a month until we get house plans finished to build our new, much much smaller and much more energy efficient and less expensive house).

Wow that is indeed impressive. I hope the new house works out for you.

 

[kcowan]

It makes no empty-nester sense to have space for the kids to return to the nest... and when our kid gets "her first permanent-change-of-station orders", we're going to get rid of all her possessions left behind, too.

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

 

[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.

 

[haha]

I think the % cost of housing (cash flow) as a percentage of total expenses is more useful.

Maybe for some purposes, but if what you want to find out is how much it costs to provide housing, I think the raw numbers are much more useful

For example, in your case, one of the things that interest me in trying to decide whether to continue renting or to buy is what it costs to get something ready to sell in a slow or choosey market.

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?

Last Sunday I walked into a condo open house in the city, but not in the central core. Good neighborhood. Listing price was $185,000. Ca 1000 sqft, 2 bdrms, 1 bath, and rehabbed and remodeled to the nines. New cork flooring, new bathroom tile, new bedrm carpets, new appliances, enough marble and slate to start a graveyad. I don't know, but it seems impossible that this cost less than $75,000.

The owner had lived there for years and died.

His two sisters came out from the midwest and did this amazing job. I was with a friend who was looking, if I had any thought that I could be happy in this less urban environment I would grab it, since friend decided she did not want it for other reasons.

Ha

 

[Enuff2Eat]

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]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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.