Costs of owning a house

[jIMOh]

My house (built new in 2005) has not needed repairs yet. I am trying to estimate costs (how much and how often they occur).

A question for long time home owners:

How long have you owned your residence?
how much sg ft?

How often have you replaced carpet?
cost per sq ft?

How often have you painted interior walls?
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft?
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft?
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft?
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft?
How often did you replace HVAC?
How often did you replace hot water heater?
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other?

Try to decipher what was a normal home repair vs a known fixer upper house at time of purchase. Looking for maintainance costs and how often they occurred.

 

[FUEGO]

How long have you owned your residence? 5 years - house is 34 years old
how much sg ft? 1800

How often have you replaced carpet?
cost per sq ft? 1x - $0.75/sf w/ free installation from family

How often have you painted interior walls? 1x during remodel

How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? never

How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? never
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? never, but soon will - $1.50-$1.75/ft

How often did you replace HVAC? 1x upon purchase - new furnace and AC, and compressor, new ductwork = $4400

How often did you replace hot water heater? 1x - $400 w/ free labor from family. Old unit was flooded a bunch and was 16 years old

Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other?
We remodeled two baths and a fireplace/wall upgraded w/ built in bookshelves; 2 bathroom floors were rotten, so subflooring and flooring were replaced - maybe $2000-3000 total w/ free labor from family

consider cost of adding deck, porch, shed, new windows, etc on a fixer upper.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

How long have you owned your residence? 19
how much sg ft? 1500

How often have you replaced carpet? Replaced carpet in one room in 1992 $250 total
cost per sq ft?

How often have you painted interior walls? painted in 1990
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? Brick
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Same gutters
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? 1995 $4000
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft? One room in 1992 about $250 total
How often did you replace HVAC? Once 1990 $800 new furance. The 1973 A/C is still working. I spent about $140 for new electrical motor and parts for the outside A/C unit. But it still has the 1973 compressor.
How often did you replace hot water heater? Once in 1990 $175
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? New driveway 1991 $1200

 

[CyclingInvestor]

How long have you owned your residence? 21 years
how much sg ft? about 1400

How often have you replaced carpet? never. heavily shedding dogs keep carpet thick and fresh

How often have you painted interior walls? never
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? painted twice
Cost per sq ft? <$1 (DIY)
How often have you replaced gutters? never
How often have you replaced roof? once, $5500 5 years ago
How often did you replace HVAC? once, $2500, 10 years ago
How often did you replace hot water heater? once
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? driveway once. most of plumbing once.

 

[Walt34]

I'll use the old house since the one we're in is only five years old and hasn't needed anything but a couple tubes of caulk, but I will paint some outside woodwork and foundation walls this year.

1100 SF

I was in it sixteen years, the house was built in 1959, I bought it late 1985.

Hardwood floors, rugs were I guess $100-$300 each. They'd be more like $500 now.

Had the roof & siding done at the same time, $6,000 about 12 years ago. I think we kept the same gutters. I did buy 30-year shingles, the cost difference was minimal, most of it is labor.

We painted once.

Hot water heater once. $300?

Furnace was 40 years old, replaced that too when the A/C died, $4,000 for both, that about 9 years ago.

Getting married was a costly part of it, she was the one who wanted (gasp!) furniture in the living room, rugs, paint on the walls, etc. Said something about "living like a bear". But I had a nice workshop.

 

[OAG]

Condo all exterior repairs/maintenance/replacement, condo association through monthly fee/reserve fund (monthly fee of $260; includes, water, sewer, insurance, trash service, snow removal, lawn service, sprinkler system).
I will paint if we decide to remain beyond 5 years or so. (last time I did a interior painting job it took about 15 gallons of paint and personal labor) under $200.00
I may put down hardwood flooring (about 800 sf and about 30 stairs). Material will cost about $5 a square foot and I am toying with a DIY in which case the total cost will be about $5,000 depending on flooring material.
Condo is 3 years old at this point.
Total SF 3,600 (2,800 finished).

 

[tuixiu]

Townhome about 10 years old

HOA fees $170/month covers all exterior including landscaping, roof, painting, pest control.

1100 sqft
Painted all interior when first moved in
Replaced downstairs carpet with wood laminate and tile
Replaced dishwasher when moved in

Water heater and heat pump are fine, but the stove and above-stove microwave are due.

 

[oma]

Curious - regarding condo fees: how are fees adjusted over the years? Do you have periodic increases in the fee or is it a set rate?

 

[SecondCor521]

I'm going to aggregate data from the last three houses for you to give you more data. Houses 1 and 2 were brand new when we moved in, house 3 was 2 years old when I bought it.

How long have you owned your residence? 7 years / 3 years / 1 year
How many sg ft? 1539 / ~2800 / ~1750

How often have you painted interior walls? Never for maintenance reasons. Former wife repainted nearly all of the walls in houses 1 and 2 for decorative reasons.
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? Never / $0
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Never / $0
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? Never / $0
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft? Never / $0
How often did you replace HVAC? Never / $0
How often did you replace hot water heater? Never / $0
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? None / $0

2Cor521

 

[OAG]

Curious - regarding condo fees: how are fees adjusted over the years? Do you have periodic increases in the fee or is it a set rate?

Most have a Governing Board elected by the members. Have periodic meetings (usually monthly) and a Annual General Membership Meeting. By-laws govern increasing fees, etc. They do go up (virtually never down) but usually if the board can justify the increases - if not - the membership can raise h*ell, vote in someone else and usually recall them. There are somewhat different rules for some but they all usually run about the same generally. Fees for example, on our condo, have gone up considerably this past year ($30 a month) but the justification was to increase the reserve fund and the amount was determined by a third-party company we hired to see what we needed to have funded for the future.

 

[W2R]

My house (built new in 2005) has not needed repairs yet. I am trying to estimate costs (how much and how often they occur).

A question for long time home owners:

How long have you owned your residence? 6 years, built in 1972
how much sg ft? 1558 square feet

How often have you replaced carpet? Never, though it drastically needs new carpet and I plan to recarpet the whole place this year or next. The original carpeting in my living room was brilliant ORANGE when I bought it, and the original carpet in one of the bedrooms was BLACK. Though the rest was beige, it has taken a lot of LBYM attitude to keep from doing something about the carpet color in those two rooms for 6 years. I have pseudo-persian throw rugs over the wall to wall carpet in most of the rooms, and the throw rugs don't show much wear. But by now, most of the wall to wall carpets are looking worn. They were not new when I bought the house.

cost per sq ft? I sure hope it isn't exorbitant.

How often have you painted interior walls? N/A... Most of my house is wallpapered. Removed wallpaper and painted once in my dressing room just to redecorate.
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? N/A... my house is brick. I painted the shutters once with paint left by the former owners. $0
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Never, new when I bought the house.
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? Never, new when I bought the house.
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft? (see above)
How often did you replace HVAC? Had to spend a total of about $3000-$4000 replacing the whole system, bit by bit, even including the ducts, over the first three years in the house.
How often did you replace hot water heater? Once, last month. $800
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other?
Minor stuff due to Katrina damage, replacing torn off doors ($480) and patio repair. (not done yet)

Broken, non-code pencil thick gas line going only to my outdoor gas lamp, due to hitting it too hard with my hedge trimmer. Plumbers fixed it. $150

Replaced my fuse box with a circuit breaker box. The fuse box was working, but it had an antique difficult-to-find fuse in it for the stove and that fuse disintegrated into dust. Besides, I prefer circuit breakers! $1000.

Plumbers fixed a shower that wouldn't turn off (needed a washer, duh! but I'm no good with plumbing). Then I had them fix another leaky faucet. $500. Turned out it was more than just a leaky faucet, and everything was unavailable so the moronic plumber's assistant decided he had to replace a lot more than one would think, and he took a couple of days to finish. I no longer use that plumber.

Tree trimmers and tree removal maybe 3 times at $300-$900 a pop.

Need to repair one of the finials on my wrought iron fence, which broke off when I tried to heave a tree stump over it and missed (don't ask! )

Try to decipher what was a normal home repair vs a known fixer upper house at time of purchase. Looking for maintainance costs and how often they occurred.

My house appeared to be, and I think was, very well maintained when I bought it. Don't forget the termite man ($95/year, after the more expensive first treatment where they bore the holes in the driveway).

I usually budget roughly $2000-$3000 per year for repairs and maintenance and other emergencies such as my TV blowing up or an unexpected root canal, and spend less than that. One year I spent more, but the next year I spent virtually nothing so it all averages out. A rule of thumb that I have heard (which may or may not be a good one) is to allow 1% for maintenance and repairs.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

[threadjack]

Curious - regarding condo fees: how are fees adjusted over the years? Do you have periodic increases in the fee or is it a set rate?

i'm currently looking to downsize (will take at least a year or two in this market) and was considering condo. then last night i talked to a friend (my mom's old friend) about her condo fees and i am rethinking that option. until a few years ago, she was paying about $300/month. it looked like the condo had lots of money in reserves but turns out there was really just a lot of deferred maintenance.

now they are fixing up their two oceanfront towers. in two/three years her fees are up to $555/month. they just last month received a $3,000/unit assessment. fees are going up another $100/month this year and they expect them to go up another $100/month next year as they just took out a $2mm loan to redo the plumbing for the air coolers.

i forget which poster, but someone a while back noted that in a house you have more control over your costs. so even though i love the idea of an easy-to-close-up apartment, after my conversation with my friend, those cost factors now weigh more in my decision-making.

[/threadjack]

 

[tuixiu]

Our fees were $150/month when we moved in and apparently had been for a long time, then they went up to $170.

The board can propose raising them but there is limited % they can do per year, then everyone in the HOA can vote on it.

 

[W2R]

[threadjack]
i'm currently looking to downsize (will take at least a year or two in this market) and was considering condo. then last night i talked to a friend (my mom's old friend) about her condo fees and i am rethinking that option. until a few years ago, she was paying about $300/month. it looked like the condo had lots of money in reserves but turns out there was really just a lot of deferred maintenance.

now they are fixing up their two oceanfront towers. in two/three years her fees are up to $555/month. they just last month received a $3,000/unit assessment. fees are going up another $100/month this year and they expect them to go up another $100/month next year as they just took out a $2mm loan to redo the plumbing for the air coolers.

i forget which poster, but someone a while back noted that in a house you have more control over your costs. so even though i love the idea of an easy-to-close-up apartment, after my conversation with my friend, those cost factors now weigh more in my decision-making.

[/threadjack]

Wow!! Now that would not be so bad in a "normal" housing market, but combined with the problems in the Florida housing market lately, that could be a huge problem. By that I mean that she can't necessarily sell easily if she can't afford the fees, or just doesn't want fees that high.

Every now and then I start dreaming about condos due to the low upkeep, but when I hear stories like that I remember why I really prefer living in a single family home with no fees.

 

[Coach]

How long have you owned your residence? 23 years
how much sg ft? 972

How often have you replaced carpet? not carpeted
cost per sq ft?

How often have you painted interior walls? once, the second time is coming up
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? painted once
Cost per sq ft? DIY, not much
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? once, I don't recall how much it cost
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? once, for about $2500 with tearoff and some repair
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft? no carpet
How often did you replace HVAC? once
How often did you replace hot water heater? once
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other?
Hardwood floors are due for refinishing.

Coach

 

[Zoocat]

Every now and then I start dreaming about condos due to the low upkeep, but when I hear stories like that I remember why I really prefer living in a single family home with no fees.

What I've learned about buying into a townhome/condo development is this: read the HOA meeting minutes back issues, as many as possible. Also look carefully at their budgets and check out the reserves. Talk to the management company and the HOA board president, if possible. Talk to neighbors, if you don't mind being nosey. You can find out if there have been any special assessments. Sometimes it's the only way to find out!

Also, have a building inspection done, not just the interior.

You would be surprised by how many people buy a townhome/condo without doing this research. Then when the HOA fees rise, they show up at the HOA meeting all bothered because they don't want to pay more.

 

[W2R]

Good suggestions! Thanks.

 

[FIREd]

I have been in this house for only 3 years but the sellers (who were the original owners) gave us all their records:

How long have you owned your residence? 3 years, but the house itself is 30 years old.
how much sg ft? 2500

How often have you replaced carpet? replaced once, 10 years ago.
How often have you painted interior walls? three times at least.
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? Never (it's brick and still in pretty good shape)
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Gutters have been changed (or repaired I can't tell) once, about 10 years ago.
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? This is the third roof on this house. Pretty much a new roof every 15 years. Paid $12,000 for it, including ridge vent and gutter guard installation.
How often did you replace HVAC? The house originally had no central HVAC system. It was retrofitted later. Current system is 10 years old and we are planning on replacing it in 2 years. Estimates we received are around $5600-$6000 for a new system.
How often did you replace hot water heater? Hot water heater has been replaced twice (every 10 years or so) and the current one will probably need to be replaced in a couple of years. We had to replace one of the heating elements last year.
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? Part of the driveway has been redone 8 years ago. Quite a few plumbing problems in the past few years and signs of more plumbing problems in the past decades: We had to deal with one copper tubing pinhole leak, one sewer pipe clog (due to tree roots), and one vent pipe clog (when a squirrel fell into it). Prior owners obviously had issues with toilets and shower leaks as evidenced by the patched popcorn ceiling. And finally two retention walls behind the house are in need of replacement ($5,000 to $10,000 depending on materials).

 

[Rustic23]

I handled it with a sinking fund. I made a spread sheet with Cost to replace, Expected Life. Calculated Annual cost, then monthly cost. Add all the things up and you have how much you should put away to replace things. For me is is about $400, however, I put in everything I could think of, stove, lawn equipment, fridge, carpet, roof, sprinkler system, furniture etc. Not a perfect method, but close enough.

 

[TromboneAl]

How long have you owned your residence? 9 yrs
how much sg ft? 2000

How often have you replaced carpet? 1 (partial)
cost per sq ft?

How often have you painted interior walls? Not
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? repainted once
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Not
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? Not
How often have you replaced carpet? cost per sq ft? LR only
How often did you replace HVAC? Not
How often did you replace hot water heater? Once (to switch t on-demand)
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? No

 

[prgsdw]

How long have you owned your residence? 7 years, home built in 1954.
how much sg ft? 1450

How often have you replaced carpet? 1 time in family room, tore the carpet out of the rest of the house
cost per sq ft? We bought stainmaster carpet, my wife works at Lowe's so with the discount it probably wouldn't be applicable...

How often have you painted interior walls? Each room once, 2 rooms twice in 7 years.
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Cost per sq ft? replaced the siding on the house when we bought it. Brother did the work, so the cost is probably not comparable to a commercial contractor situation.
How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Replaced the gutters when we did the siding and roof, which we did right after buying the home. Again, brother did the work so i'd bet it's not comparable...
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? Replaced the roof right after we bought the house. Used 50 year architectural shingles. Roof had been replaced once before since 1954.
How often did you replace HVAC? We actually added air conditioning and duct work to the house after buying it. Carrier system was installed, local contractor charged $6500. We also replaced the original furnace (oil, hot water baseboard heat) a year after buying the home (this was the original coal stove that was converted to oil and needed a $450 repair). That cost $3500.
How often did you replace hot water heater? Don't have one per se, comes off of the furnace.
Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? We have the blacktop resealed every 3 years. Costs about $125. Not too much that I want to mess with it myself and they seem to do a good job.

Every situation is different - we knew going in that it was a fixer upper, but also that my brother was a contractor and we'd get a family discount. So it's worked out fine for us. Good luck.

 

[Independent]

I think the "how long" questions are about life expectancies.

Here's a source Bank of America | Please Select Your State

I can't vouch for the accuracy, but it at least gives you a checklist.

 

[LOL!]

How long have you owned your residence? 13 years, house was one year old when we bought it.
how much sq ft? 3000+

How often have you replaced carpet? Not yet, but plan to in next few months

How often have you painted interior walls? Kids rooms around year 10.
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? Once around year 11 with roof replacement (see below). Painted outside with a little siding replacement. Cost per sq ft?

How often have you replaced gutters? cost per sq ft? Never.
How often have you replaced roof? cost per sq ft? Once around year 11. Hail damage, so paid by insurance.

How often did you replace HVAC? Replaced one outside unit due to lightning strike. $2400.
How often did you replace hot water heater? One at 10 years, the other at 12 years.

Any other frequent repairs? Driveway, floors or other? Refinished kitchen wood floor at year 8. Leaky pipe, but caught early enough, so no water damage. Garage door repaired (broken spring) & opener replaced at year 12. Dead trees removed, maybe $500 at year 1 and year 13. Replaced oven. Replace dishwasher to get a very quiet one. In-ground sprinkler system needs repair. Wood fence: occasional boards replaced.

 

[Meadbh]

How long have you owned your residence? 17 years
how much sg ft? 1250

How often have you replaced carpet? What carpet? All hardwood floors.
cost per sq ft? N/A

How often have you painted interior walls? Once, and refinished them
How often have you replaced siding (or painted outside)? What siding? It's stucco.
Cost per sq ft? N/A

How often have you replaced gutters? Once
cost per sq ft? Don't remember, it was a long time ago

How often have you replaced roof? Once
cost per sq ft? Total cost was ~$4000

How often did you replace HVAC? Once.

How often did you replace hot water heater? What hot water heater? The furnace heats the water

Any other frequent repairs? No

Driveway, floors or other? Install alarm system, kitchen & bathroom reno, new garage, chimney, landscaping......that's about it. Altogether I have probably spent ~$40K on the house over the last 17 years (not counting property taxes).

 

[Zoocat]

Townhome -- built in 2003, owned 3 years

141/month HOA pays everything on the exterior, plus snow removal and landscaping requirements.

Interior painting: four rooms, twice in the living room, about $350, DIY

Handyman help: about $250

Window blinds: $175.

That's it.