Working Moms
Anyone else live in a money pit? :/
I know home ownership comes along with spending money and up-keeping the home, but I feel like we live in a pit. Since we moved in 6 years ago, we've had to replace the furnace, replace cabinets, put new gutters on, painted every wall and now we have leaks in 2 different places in our ceiling. We bought what we could with the market the way it was back then and we were just starting out with our careers. We've been doing what we can and getting our finances in a row to move, but the market is crap. Now, I just feel like we'll be stuck in this craphole forever. Vent over. I just had to complain to someone other than MH 
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Re: Anyone else live in a money pit? :/
Nope, you're not alone! Our house is 12 years old, and while we haven't had to deal w/ major stuff like replacing furnaces, I do feel like we have so much work to do in order to make it into the house we want. I wish we had a money tree because there's a lot of potential in our house but it's just kinda blah right now.
When we bought our house, we only intended to be in it for maybe 5-ish years, maybe a bit longer. Well, now that its value has fallen about $100K (GULP!!) since we bought it, we're gonna be here for much, much longer.
Yep. And our house isn't even what I would consider "old." Our house was built in 93, and we bought in 07. Since then, we've had to replace the a/c and furnace, the roof (not covered by insurance because they said it was a "design flaw"), fix the interior ceiling (thank you crappy roof), and pay someone to get rid of mold (once again, that you crappy roof). We've spent a fortune both removing the above ground pool and then trying to get grass to grow where the pool was. Despite this, you can still see a very clear outline of where the pool was. This summer, we absosutely have to get the deck replaced. It is falling apart and is to the point where I'm scared to walk on it.
We're both in the military and will be moving in the next year or two. There is no way we will make back anything close to what we've put in this house. Thankfully, we haven't had to go into additional debt to make these repairs. We've talked about renting this house out when we move since we won't be able to sell it for what we've spent, but with its track record I'm scared of what other things might go wrong.
I don't think I want to buy ever again until we're both out of the military and settle in a permanent location.
You are not alone! Buying a house was the worst financial decision we could have made (at least in the short term). We've been here 4 years and have had to replace the brand new roof (MAJOR $$$ not covered by insurance) because it was leaking everywhere, we've had mold remediation, the furnace has broken (it was repairable, but it was a $$$ repair - nearly 1k), had to install a fence underneath our porch because critters were digging at the foundation, blew in insulation, etc. etc. etc.
We still have a few big things on our list - we're getting central A/C shortly, and we have extensive electrical work to do (probably next year). We also have a leaky pipe that requires walls to be torn out to fix, but we're going to wait on that... we just don't use that bathroom in the meantime.
The real bummer is we haven't been able to do any "fun" or cosmetic remodeling (aside from painting) because we have so much structural work that needs done. We did get new windows - that was kind of fun but also very necessary, as our old windows were from 1929 and were cracked, leaking air, etc. I can't wait for the day when I can actually spend $$ on a bathroom remodel or new floors instead of something behind the walls.
Yes, but we did this intentionally. We bought a house that needed work in foreclosure so the money we would have put into a larger down payment we've used to renovate the house. In the past 2 years, we've done new flooring on the whole first floor, finished the basement, renovated the kitchen, and we're now renovating the bathroom/getting new windows.
It seems like people with newer houses have more issues. Our house is from the 1920s (we live in new england where there's a ton of old houses!) and we've had no issues at all. *knock on wood*
YES! Our house was built in 1910 and there are just so many problems. We had to replace the roof one year after we moved and we just had to have our basement waterproofed and redone. We found out that the previous owners did not disclose that the basement leaked which resulted in a LONG court case. We won, but did not get as much as we hoped. I love old houses, but I will never buy one again unless I have a TON of money to fix it up constantly. We also had to replace our furnace. It is never-ending......
Oh gawd...all these posts make me think I should just tear our "New to us" house down and have a ready to move in Prefab to my specs set on the xisting foundation...but then again in all honesty our house was build in 1950 and is not having any of the issues described...we just need a new Heating System which I'm sure could be had for $2000- but we want to get out of the Oil-business so it will run more like $12k...BUT our 1950 house is also still on the original heating system...
A money pit no doubt- but I feel fortunate and count my blessings that we were not able to buy at the peak of the market as my husband was laid of as an AIG Subcontractor a good 8 mths before everything went into freefall!
I really hope the market turns around soon for you guys sitting on a ton of negative equity!
We've been in our house 8 years and have literally replaced every.single.thing at least once (we're on our third stove and dishwasher).
We did have a lull there for a while where we didn't have to replace anything in a pinch, but the money got absorbed into other areas anyway so it wasn't even a break on the wallet... I just keep telling myself that it's all adding to my home's value and we'll make out great when we sell (we bought well before the housing crash so I know we'll make tons of money when we sell).
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
Absolutely. We're in the exact same boat, except we bought 5 years ago. I feel sort of cursed. We've had floods, freak random things, plumbing disasters, walls cave in, etc. And nothing has been covered by insurance. We know we're on year 5 of what the inspector said was a roof that would last 5 more years. And we only have 2 bedrooms, making it tough with a baby coming in 5 weeks. We're trying to do a short sale since we know it's probably going to take at least 10 years to get our value back. Still paying the mortgage, but listed it to see what happens.
Yup! Our house is 110 years old and we put a ton of work into it. Thankfully we haven't hired a contractor for any of it but still it's been a lot of work and it doesn't by any means look new even though everything is new.
We pay way too much to live in this craptrap!
during my pregnancy alone!!!
kitchen redo - cabinets were hideous and warping! shelf with glasses actually fell down
garage door needed replaced
AC broke in TX heat in July (due in Aug) - new AC didn't work at first
bathtub issues that could've lead to mold and part of our exterior wall falling down - new tub/tile, etc. in master!
On top of all that, we had already decided to close in an outdoor room as our nursery. I almost lost my mind but luckily we had extra $ saved up for baby!!!
Our house was built (poorly) in the 80s and had been a rental home when DH bought it.
DS born 8/2010 - preliminary stages of SN int'l adoption - fur mama to 2 shelter dogs; cloth diapering, babywearing, EBFing mama