Buying A House : Six Months After
This week, we will have owned our house for 6 months. I have been really happy with both the house we bought and the actual decision to go ahead and the the plunge. Over the course of these last six months I have learned a lot. I thought it would be a great idea to share some of the things I learned for those of you that are considering buying a house or have just purchased one.
That being said, I could give the best advice in the world (or the worst) and (if your like me) you’ll still need to actually figure it out for yourself. So without further ado, here are some of the really important things that I learned from owning a house for the past 6 months:
- Location is SO important - We looked at several cities and neighborhoods before settling on Bexley. Although the taxes are higher then the other places we looked, I completely feel it is money well spent. Our neighborhood is quite, within walking distance to the schools, the library, and Main Street. The schools are rated as some of the best in Ohio. The services are great (no more trash spilled allover the street like our old municipal garbage collection) and the town is small enough that the local government is friendly and personal.
- You WILL need some tools - Even if your not very handy, you are going to need some tools to get things done. I would suggest at a minimum to get : A flat head and Philips screw driver (or replaceable head screw driver), a 25 foot tape measure, a wrench, pliers, and a power drill with a drill bit set. Trust me on the drill. You’ll use it a lot more then you think.
- You WILL become somewhat handy - Even a house in great shape is going to have something that needs to be fixed. Unless your a lot richer then me (and trust me, you won’t be feeling rich after you get into the house) calling someone to fix every little thing is going to be prohibitively expensive. Plus fixing a leaking toilet makes you feel like a man (or woman). Revel in your handy(wo)manlyness.
- Pay attention to your money - Your going to need at least a couple months to get comfortable with your new budget (especially if your apartment was $400 a month and your new house is more then 4 times that). But if you’ve bought what you can afford, you should not really run into anything and you will get used to the new budget quickly.
- Finished Basement = Awesome - It wasn’t a huge part of the consideration when we bought the house, but just about once a week I am really thankful that we have a (mostly) finished basement. This room works great as a TV/family room and lets us keep the TV out of the living room which is something Jess and I both like. Although it doesn’t count in the square footage of the house (realtor’s, correct me if I’m wrong) it is like adding almost a whole new floor since we have a living room sized room, a smaller side room for storage and a laundry room.
- Stay away from Zillow - You didn’t buy this house to flip it did you? You know better then that (especially in this market). So you don’t need to obsess over what your house is worth till you get closer to wanting to sell it. That and seeing because of a coup[le sales in your area your home has dropped $2,000 in value over night. It just ruins your day. So stay off the valuation sites.
Hopefully you will find some of these useful. I’ve loved being a homeowner so far and hopefully you will too.
