Anyone have luck with that default $2500 maintenance budget? My lawn guy is basically that whole budget. Any service call is $500 minimum. I’ve replaced roofs, siding, HVAC systems, water hearers, etc. Trimming my mature trees costs over $3000!
I know it’s just a placeholder but I always see an insanely low placeholder on these calculators and can’t help but think they are not properly setting expectations for prospective home buyers
How often is this needed? Unless your house is so old and not up to code...? To give you an idea, I lived in a place for 2 decades and it never needed electrical work.
>trees that need trimming
It's your property - you control how many trees and how big. If it's too costly just get rid of them. Having said that, I just trimmed two trees on my property over a month ago. An hour or two of work and the right tool. Of course, if my trees were much bigger I'd have to pay someone.
BTW, I did not assume yard work as part of the amount per month. Of course, everything (including HOA, yard, etc) needs to be factored in, but I thought you were talking only about maintenance of the house.
>kitchen or bathroom remodels
How often? My house is almost 20 years old and I can see it going at least another 20 years before any such work is needed.
>painting
I assume you mean exterior? I guess - how much you need depends on the type of house. Mine uses vinyl sidings - no paint needed. But yes, you need to paint a few other parts. For my house, this is once every so many years - and the estimate I got was under $1000.
>replacing windows and doors
20 years old and look like new - I think mine will last another decade or two.
>furnace work including annual cleaning
I get my furnace tuned every year - costs $85. I included that in my estimate of less than $130/mo. Don't forget water heater maintenance too!
As I said, I'm not pulling numbers out of nowhere. I actually did this analysis some months ago. I have all the numbers on how much I've spent repairing stuff and maintenance in my software. I added it all up and calculated the number I gave you. It was actually $100/mo, but since then I think I've replaced two appliances so I bumped it up to $130 (total cost of the appliances + install is under $1000 - divide it up by 48 months I've lived there).
The rule of thumb for home maintenance is 1% of purchase price per year. Which isn't $800/month for most people, but is around the few hundred per month you mentioned.
Yah, I think this just comes down to location more than anything. I don't directly pay for garbage, plowing, or anything like that.
When I replaced the exterior doors and half of the windows that was about an 8000$ year and that is the worst it's ever been. The guy who installed those was a family friend though, so it was a bit cheaper and I helped.
This year I had to replace the water pump, but I did that on my own and it was about a 400$ job. I had to fix one of the soffits, but that was a pretty simple job too.
The only thing I dread is the roof, but that's still years and years off since it was new when I bought the place.
Generally if I put away 4000-5000$ a year for future maintenance I'm happy, that'll leave me with a giant fund if needed.
I've never heard of home maintenance budgets being more than, say, 10% of the cost of a mortgage, and usually you're advised to budget only a few percent. Obviously there are outliers like when you buy a run-down old ruin and have to do a complete period-correct refurbishment, but hopefully people know what they're getting into in those rare cases.
On-going maintenance for a home is typically ~0.5% to 1% of the home's value. That might seem high, but it's an average across all years. When you need to spend $25,000 replacing a roof, it pulls the average up.
My attitude is that if I really don't like something about your property, like tall grass, peeling paint, etc, then I should offer to help you fix it.
Not necessarily paying for materials, but just the labor part is usually a huge burden to many, such as the elderly. Hey, I have a lawn mower. It's no big deal to mow your lawn once in a while for you. Usually I'm too lazy to care about minor stuff like tall grass. I did help a neighbor fix a downspout since the contractor said she'd need fascia to put in a modern gutter and wanted $1k to do it. One hour of my time and about $25 in parts and scraps later, she has a working downspout. Isn't this what being neighbors is supposed to be?
Like everything else, this is very relative to locality. You'd be shocked at how hard it is to find any service business (pick one: plumber, well work, electrician, tree removal, etc.) to even come out to do an estimate in my area. I do a lot of tree-work for my neighboors simply because there is nobody else willing to do it. From talking with family and friends, it seems to be a common problem.
I love this because bootstrapping the concept is far simpler than an infrastructure build out, this is a super-service which can start out by sub-contracting all the individual services.
I am game, when do we start!
update: Some further thoughts on cost.
Looking at what I pay for my home (some of these I use, some I have had quoted; I also factored a monthly cost out of some of these which are quarterly). My home is upper-middle class in the midwest, about 5K square feet on 1/2 acre.
Lawn mowing: $150/mo
Lawn treatment: $40/mo
Pest control: $35/mo
HVAC maintenance: $30/mo
House cleaning: $300/mo
General maintenance: $100/mo
I would certainly pay a premium for a single end point for managing these services but that last one is the stickler. Some people will never call but you will have those who want a maintenance person for every creaking floorboard, dripping faucet and other little nuance of the home.
I think the idea has lots of merit, would love to know what others think.
Yup, I had a leaking roof during the last rainstorm and the emergency repair cost me $800 for 1 hour of work. Still happy with it because the potential damage would have been much worse.
A while back I needed some sprinkler work done.. normally I would have attempted it myself but due to health issues I can't do it anymore... and the lowest cost gardener was $200 for 30 minutes worth of work. There is still money in the blue collar trades for someone willing to run a business.
What are you actually including in that $400/year though? Are you taking full maintenance and upkeep costs into account?
A new roof and new coat of paint will already blow your budget. Your pipes will also need replacing after 30 years, as would your hot water heater, among a plethora of other expenses that come up.
Expected maintenance, LOL. Just saying as an older guy if you're not factoring in HVAC replacements, roof replacements, driveway replacements, appliance replacements, even the expenses of major yard work, you will miss thousands per year on average. I'll see these estimates online where people laughably expect to spend less than $1K/yr on home maint, LOL I spend that much on the roof averaged by year, and I spent more than that on one clothes washer this month, and the average appliance is now carefully value engineered not to last more than a couple years. Try like $1K/month on average as an absolute minimum not the online typical $1K/yr which wouldn't even maintain the level of a crackhouse.
Also do not forget time. I only have 168 hours per week minus zillions of things, to enjoy life, and after all the subtractions often there isn't that much time left to enjoy. Yes if I need to replace the tiles in my bathroom I can save a little money doing it myself but even contracting out will be hours of work to design, decide, and coordinate, and who stays home to let the craftsmen into the house and its just a circus. When I rented a bachelor pad, ALL repair work consisted of verbally mentioning it to on site manager and magically things happened, I paid more rent than average for that privilege compared to people who have to sue their landlords for any little thing, but there is no escape from spending lots of time as a building superintendent if you own a house. Buying a house is getting a part time job as a landlord. Its not like the kitchen faucet magically knows its in a owned house so it'll never fail, vs a rental.
I mean, we have to realize the groupthink on HN is that cooking food for yourself is an intolerable waste of time compared to spending two hours in restaurants daily, so owning a house and having to dump many hours into the uncountable sufferings of home ownership must be completely unacceptable; rent a nice place and "invest" about five minutes a month into telling the manager what he needs to do.
The second to last measure is many lifestyles require real estate. Not everyone wants to live life with no capital goods other than a mobile phone. I'd be pretty unsatisfied with life without my table saw and lathe and garden and ham radio antennas and a couple other things that simply require land to be realistically practical, aka go buy a house and do your hobbies in it. For all practical purposes in the market I live in you can not have a dog while renting, for example.
A final measure not often mentioned is its just a fun experience to try; Its amusing to reread some of the complaints about home ownership rewritten to apply to having friends, or buying a pet, or having children, or traveling, or getting drunk. I didn't have kids because of an enormous amount of handwaving about how I'll be wealthy if they become child movie stars or historically kids in an agricultural setting were a net financial positive which should mean something in suburban 2010s or some equally ridiculous argument. Owning a house is a VERY expensive hobby, but if you have fun and can afford it and its not hurting anyone else, may as well try it...
Several thousand more per year doesn't sound too far off: if you own, you're responsible for home repairs: roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, appliances, siding, painting, etc.
I budget $2,000 a year for repairs on a modest-sized home; most years it's under $1,000, but HVAC and roof are infrequent and fairly expensive.
Plumbing work, electrical work, trees that need trimming, kitchen or bathroom remodels (which may not be absolutely necessary but are part of a house not getting more and more rundown), painting, replacing windows and doors, furnace work including annual cleaning, etc. In a newer house in good condition, it may be less than $1K/month but it does add up over time. A lot of maintenance can be deferred but over 10+ years, there's a lot that needs to be done eventually.
Have you ever paid for a new roof, furnace, A/C, paint, etc? Maintenance on a house is expensive. If the value of your home is mostly in the value of the house and not the land, then maintenance is usually 2-5% of the value yearly.
Our total cost of our house monthly is over twice the mortgage when you include insurance, taxes, garbage, water/sewer, and maintenance (~$5000) and I can do most things like fixing minor electrical or plumbing myself.
Yeah, we also have a $2000 square foot home. That's correct. I can't stop what I'm doing at work to check on an issue with the home. $200 is the cost to get someone else to stop what they are doing and check on the home ASAP
I've owned a non-new home for a few years now. I have all the records of repairs/maintenance. So far the average is less than $130/mo (that includes buying two microwaves and a washer)
My roof needs to be reshingled. That'll cost about $6K (got a bunch of estimates from roofers). Maybe $12K 20-30 years down the road for a full replacement. That'll likely be my biggest expense, which is not even $1K/yr, let alone a month.
My other appliances are old. Once I replace them, it will bump the average to at most $200/mo.
I don't do any repair work myself - always pay to get it done. You either have a huge house or live in a very expensive area (mine is above the national average).
It seems the rule of thumb is to expect to pay ~1% of your home's value in maintenance and repairs. Newer homes may require less, older homes may require more. The challenge with this, however, is that it's unlikely that your home will need this amount in repairs/maintenance each year. Some years may require less, some years may require more. This rule of thumb holds water when averaging your home's repairs over a long time frame.
I was interested to understand how different scenarios might impact my home repair savings plan. I built a simple calculator that simulates 10 years of repair and maintenance expenses. In each scenario, the calculator projects how much to save each month to pay for all 10 years worth of expenses, but also how much I may need to fork over at one time when an unexpected repair wipes out my expenses.
Hoo boy, you aren't kidding. I have an older home and my wife reached out to this old house about getting some work done. I have a slate roof, real plaster walls, needed some wood working done like a new french door crafted, etc, etc. I don't remember the exact number any more but I think they weren't interested if my budget was less than $650k. I didn't pay that for my house!
I know it’s just a placeholder but I always see an insanely low placeholder on these calculators and can’t help but think they are not properly setting expectations for prospective home buyers
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