Buying a home certainly has been interesting, but it hasn’t been fun.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s the initial excitement of:
- Deciding to finance a home
- Scrolling through listings, hunting for your dream home… then realizing you can’t afford your dream home, or anything remotely adjacent to it
- Touring houses, convincing yourself the one next to the highway “has potential”.
- Imagining yourself in that dream kitchen, or more accurately, imagining the kitchen you wish existed inside the house with “good bones” while ignoring the builder-grade sadness in front of you.
That part is “fun”. But then reality hits. Hard. And suddenly, there’s no “n” in fun…just a whole lot of F U. And many of them happen, after you’ve decided on the home you’re looking for.
I’ve only “bought”, the quotes are definitely intentional, two homes in my lifetime (although, I’m obviously not dead yet, hmm, maybe I should say at the time of writing). And while that might seem like rookie numbers by YouTube’s “My Property Portfolio” standards, I’ve learned enough to want to time-travel and drop some knowledge on my younger self.
Hell, if you found this site and actually got to this paragraph… damn and thanks. Moving on.
This post kicks off a new series: Things I Would Tell My Younger Self About Homeownership. Each entry is rated using the time-honored Tumble22 spice scale, because if the advice doesn’t sting a little, it probably wasn’t true enough.
🌶️Hot
- You will find your home, not the realtor
- Windows and Doors are ungodly expensive
🌶️🌶️Mo’ Hot
- If you’re dreaming of remodeling a home you don’t own, then you don’t like the home
- New house provides false hope, old house provides financial pain
- Home inspectors bring false peace of mind
- Don’t fear renting as an established adult
🌶️🌶️🌶️Dang Hot
- HOAs are simultaneously evil, useless, and unnecessary <- Still working title
- Owning a home is generally another form of renting
- Solar panels are a waste of money / sand <- I go back and forth on this, but legislation makes them suck actually, not the tech.
- Insurance is mandatory, but them accepting your claim isn’t
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Stupid Hot
- Equity is debt with extra steps
- Many people will say it’s fun. It will not be.
If you’re still interested, check back in from time to time — I’ll be building a list of related articles below.
You can click through and explore each bitter truth at your own pace… or just drop your Russian gambling site links in the comments. Either way, I appreciate the engagement.
And yes, I like the little peppers I added to each category.
