End of Hiatus - and House Buying - A Tale of Realization - Part 1

It’s been awhile…but I’ve been busy landing that full-time job, adjusting to my new schedule, and – wait for it – buying a house.

Yup.

So that’s actually kinda perfect, because this is supposed to be about building your first home, and I’ve learned that there is a pretty serious limit to what you can do in an apartment. Mostly because you’re not allowed to fix, customize, or update anything the way you want…which is annoying (don't worry. I'll talk more about apartment living in this blog house or not!).

Let’s start with this…are you ready to buy a house?

House Buying – A Tale of Realization - Part 1

It’s a scary concept. Owning a house ties you to a specific location for a long time. It involves maintenance, repairs, and a never-ending outflow of money to things like fixing the roof, paying all the bills, paying property taxes, obtaining insurance…HELP, I’M NOT READY TO ADULT. So why on earth did I decide to take this step at the tender age of 22?

The Scene: My friend’s apartment, watching a pre-season Lions game.

The Characters: Me, the guy hosting the gathering (let’s call him Peter), another friend (Lauren) who is sharing an apartment with someone and working her slow way through college, and a friend (Hester) who is still in college/living at home and looking at our full-time jobs, single apartments, and electric bills and saying ‘oh my god, adulting costs a lot of money’.

The Story:

“Ugh, sorry I’m late guys,” I greeted everyone, taking off my rain-soaked shoes at the door. “The ceiling in my apartment decided to start leaking, so I had to move all my stuff out of the way, set up towels and pots, and call maintenance. Oh, and apparently maintenance doesn’t consider a leak urgent, and won’t send somebody out until tomorrow morning. Isn’t the best time to fix a leak while it’s raining?”

“Ew, that sucks,” Lauren said. “Well, you’re not missing much – the Lions are playing like…well…the Lions.”

“You have a leak?” Peter asked in confusion. “How? Isn’t your apartment on the ground floor?”

“Yup,” I said. “But there’s only two stories and it’s at the seam where the wall meets the ceiling, so it’s probably a gutter problem or something with the balcony above me. The best part of that is that the water is running down the wall destroying the paint and drywall and there’s literally nothing I can do about it. That’s sad, because I could likely fix it myself.”

“Maintenance sucks,” Peter said. “My dishwasher was randomly leaking the other day, so maintenance came to fix it…and used MY TOWELS that I had sitting on the counter to clean up. So now my towels are all filthy and gross. Plus they tracked mud in everywhere.”

This was my first time seeing Peter’s apartment, so he was showing off the relatively spacious kitchen, Walmart bookshelf/entertainment center, and nice-looking laminate flooring…and complaining about how much a one-bedroom apartment cost. He had chosen a downtown area hoping to enjoy the nightlife, but was quickly discovering that his long commute to work (due to traffic, not distance), the lack of parking anywhere near his apartment, and the rules against grilling were not worth the walking-distance bars and clubs. My apartment, nestled on the outskirts of cozy suburb, was slightly cheaper and included more utilities, but was still ridiculously expensive.

We compared complaints, and started reminiscing to the days in college when we rented a house with a yard, and could barbecue and have as many houseguests (and their cars) as we wanted to. Of course, we both acknowledged that college rental houses are glorified pieces of broken crap.

“Gosh,” Peter said. “I wish I could afford to own a house. Then I could do whatever I wanted, I’d have a yard, and I wouldn’t have to move for a very long time.”

“That’d be awesome,” I agreed. “But if we think a one-bedroom apartment is expensive, how much more do you think a house would cost?”

“Well, let’s find out.” He opened his laptop and typed something into Google. “Hey, wait…this doesn’t seem that expensive.” He tilted the screen so that I could see, and I frowned, seeing Zillow estimates of $500-$800/mo depending on the area and newness of the house. Compared to my $945 and his $1100/mo, this seemed unbelievable.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lauren chimed in. “Houses has taxes.”

“And insurance,” I said.

“And RESPONSIBILITY,” Hester exclaimed. “Are you guys crazy?”

“And no utilities are included,” Peter added. “But I wonder…”

We excitedly started Googling and calculating…and realized that on a monthly basis, a small house would cost less than our apartments. The only catch seemed to be the down payment, which was recommended at 20%...and a bare minimum of 3% if we took an FHA loan (meaning that we get a cheap loan for little money up front, but pay an extra fee every month). 3% of a house is still a pretty big chunk of money.

“Well, that counts me out,” Peter said. “It’s all I can do afford my apartment, car payment, and student loans…and I’m putting a little in my 401K. I can’t save for a down payment! At least not quickly.”

I hesitated. I don’t have student loans (scholarships are awesome), but I also don’t make very much money. Then again, from working a gazillion hours a week while going to school and budgeting like a crazy person for the last four years, I did have that 3% in the bank…plus a little bit extra. Still, it seemed crazy. I couldn’t buy a house…I was too young, I didn’t make enough money, and although I had a full-time job it wasn’t exactly in the niche I wanted my career to be in…and I didn’t know the first thing about how to buy a house!

A week later, my rent was due and my ceiling still wasn’t fixed properly (they said it was hard to diagnose what was leaking when it wasn’t raining. Shocker). After staring crankily at the mess in my living room, I sat down with a cup of coffee to go over my finances and see if there was any way in hell I could afford to buy a house in the spring, when my lease was up.

To be continued…