My wife and I are about 3 weeks from closing on our first house and I am losing my god damn mind. All of our finances/budget work out while still having savings for emergency repairs, our inspection went well after having to back out on the first we offered on (tree fell on the house after offer was accepted, thought we could fix but it was a wash) and we really like the area and first impressions of our neighbors.
I know buying a house is a top “most stressful thing” an average person can go through, but this is a lot harder than I thought and I didn’t downplay it in my head. I am guessing I will feel like this for the first year or two and progressively it will become normal right? We have a lot of support from our families (financially, emotionally and labor/handypeople) so I am still optimistic about the whole thing, but my appetite is non existent and insomnia seems to be working in overdrive.
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Congratulations! May your new life as homeowners bring you happiness!
Make sure you know where the water shutoff valves are, and that the electric breakers are labelled. And do not, I repeat, DO NOT start any DYI project on a Friday afternoon.
Our house has a partial park view. It’s nice. And, in about 3 years we’ll have a full park view because the pipeline running through the city is undermining the foundation of every house in the neighborhood and we’re all slowly sliding into the park.
But you’re going to be fine…
What’s that sound? Is it supposed to make it? Did it make it before? Is that wet? Why is it wet? That bug is new, haven’t seen one like that. Electric bill is higher this month. Got the escrow statement; it went up again. That crack… Seems longer. Door squeaks again. Was the drain recessed like that? Are you sure? That’s loose, should probably do something about it. Gotta run to the hardware store. They’re backordered on that thing that melted in the fire. The AC is dripping again. Is the water pressure lower than usual? What’s that smell? Is it coming from under there? Why is the milk spoiled? Is the fridge warm to you? Grass is long again. Sprinkler got run over by a neighbor. We need to do something about the dead tree.
Literally things said at my house IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS. Holy shit why.
Gotta love having an old house. It’s simultaneously reassuring and deeply stressful when a professional looks at something that seems really bad and just says, “Well, I can tell from the layers of paint that’s been there a long time. So if it hasn’t become a problem in all that time, it’s probably fine. But give me a call if your house starts falling apart.”
Sounds similar to my mental chatter about our house.
The timeframe all depends on the house. Over the last 30 years, we’ve bought three homes. The first one was an absolute breeze and never caused us heartache. The second one, was a bit of a troublemaker but we just worked our way from room to room, rehabbing the entire house a little bit at a time.
This last one has been a nightmare for the 4 years we’ve owned it. We’ve blown through our savings and still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Without going into needless detail, on top of a qualified home inspector, I would suggest going to the city/county permitting office to make sure permits were pulled for anything that’s been recently done. In our case, the the biggest issue with this property was that apartment over garage was done illegally and we had to completely gut and start over. Unfortunately, the entire reason we picked this house was for that apartment as it was for our daughter to live in.
My intention isn’t to scare you but just be sure to perform due diligence and don’t be afraid to further investigate potential issues.
The thing that pisses me off about this, is how the previous owner who illegally modified the house isn’t instantly on the hook for the amount it elevated the house price, and you would have to proactively litigate them in civil court (if that’s even legal).
I agree, we had the option to sue the seller but the reality is, even if we spend a ton of money to take him to court, there’s no guaranteed payment at the end. We decided to focus on fixing the problem rather than try to get compensation from them.
There is absolutely no system in place to protect people from something like this. The inspector didn’t find it, the realty attorneys didn’t find it, the realtors didn’t find it. We only found out about it when pulling a permit for a deck.
Yep. Just another example of how the system is designed to protect the existing capital and landowners over what is fair or just.
Your latest house is pretty much what I am expecting as a FTHB. Permits have been my main concern after some quick searches. There’s not a lot of updates made in recent years to the place that would require them, but who knows what was done that wasn’t visible during inspection. I know it should be ok, but I never had to deal with this before so it’s just another thing added to the list.
Everything you’re feeling is normal. Stay optimistic. We were in your shoes not that long ago and went through the same thing. Keep breathing, deep breaths, maybe take up some breath focused meditation for 15-20 mins a day. Or even some yoga can calm your nervous system. There will be unexpected setbacks but you’re going to work through it all and come out the other side just fine. Personally, I’ve had to redirect my attention to just tackling one thing at a time and keep plugging away so I don’t get overwhelmed with the magnitude of all the issues together.
How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
It takes a while to get used to the new house after you move in. You are hyper aware of little things that you might have missed during viewings, mainly due to being responsible for maintaining it now. I remember being alarmed by floorboards creeking while I went to the bathroom one night after moving in. It’s almost like learning a new musical instrument or something.
That said, you do settle in after a few weeks. Our settling in was delayed slightly by a leak to the shop downstairs which turned out to be the exit pipe for the whole block (so not so bad) but took a while to get to the bottom of. Now, it’s been more than 2 years and I’m not sure where the time went.
My advice would be to try and avoid the temptation of leaving boxes around unpacked. Getting everything stored away correctly will make you feel at home much faster.
It goes away, I spent ~11 months doing a complete DIY remodel after my partner and I closed so that whole year was stressful, but now that we’re moved in it really ain’t that bad.
Chill, you’ll feel better soon
I fixed most of the rainwater drainage issues 2 years ago and I STILL check the basement for leaks every time it rains. Homeownership is a constant battle against water and water is one sneaky bastard.
Water is entropy manifest to constantly remind you that anything you do is temporary and laughably futile on geologic timescales.
My basement flooded out first year. One sump pump and Reno later I still worry about it but to be honest every time I hear that pump go is music to me ears knowing it’s water diverted away from my house.
If your first house is anything like mine was, it’ll be a lot of “What’s that sound!? God dammit…” followed by either a day’s worth of work fixing something, or a bill for several hundred dollars. It took a few major problems before my wife and I started getting confident that we knew what we were doing. You get used to it, and eventually problems that arise are no longer a “will we get through this?” and instead become an “ugh, I can’t wait until we’re through this.” After a few years I was able to sell it to someone else as their starter home, and use the equity I built to buy a much nicer house with far fewer problems, though you’ll never be totally free from the occasional sudden panic of a major issue.
a bill for several hundred dollars
After a few years I was able to sell it to someone else as their starter home, and use the equity I built
What boomer bullshit is this. Its 2025 you have got to be dreaming.
Huh? I bought my first house in 2020. It was $200,000 for a run-down house in a bad part of Minneapolis. It was my first home, so I could use the first-time home buyer benefit to only need $10,000 for the down payment, which I had built up over a few years of saving. While in the house, fixing my garage door when it broke was $250, and repairing my AC and Furnace each time they broke was $300-500. Stuff that was bigger than that was covered by insurance. I fixed everything else myself, however poorly. The money I got for selling the house in 2023 for $230,000 was enough to afford the down payment on the next place after paying back my first mortgage and the realtor fees.
It has been 5 years. Next door has been doing construction for the past 9 months, they have destabilized two of the property border trees that could potentially land on my house. They have literally lashed them to the frame of the house in the meantime at least. So I’m a little biased here haha
The stress is as bad as you make it usually though. Sometimes you just have to let things be suboptimal for a while to maintain your mental health.
It all becomes normal after a while but I still stress about the things that could take it away. Treefalls during big storms and fire hazards and places where people might trip and gutter overflows and was that a carpenter ant and and and.
A now, ten years later, we’re doing some minor remodeling and a lot of those money stresses and fears of the unknown are coming back.
The first house our offer was accepted on had a large tree (the biggest tree I ever saw IRL besides some state parks) and had a credit to get it removed. 3 days after our offer was accepted a big storm came through and a branch fell, destroying the roof on the back half. We went through with the inspection because they told us insurance was replacing it, but we walked into a house with water going from the roof to the basement. There was even water pooling in the breaker box. We mentioned everything we found to them and they just said “well our neighbor is the contractor and he can do the roof and some of the walls. If you guys want to talk to insurance or find another contractor that’s fine”. We backed out after that.
Edit: There were multiple broken struts in the roof and they “didn’t know about” and said the neighbor could fix them. We looked up the neighbor and he’s just some guy with an LLC doing handy work. Nothing against that but when it comes to structural work, I would want an artitect or engineer to take a look, not some handyman who can “fix it” while missing a lot of the damage our inspector found.
Dodged that bullet, wow.
Dodged an artillery shell!
If you’re really freaking out this much, I’m guessing you bought a house you could barely afford.
You probably won’t ever calm down if that’s the case.
Have fun paying taxes on it.
I dunno about that. I bought a house well within what I could afford. The bank actually thought we made a mistake and reminded us they would approve a loan double the size of what we asked.
All it takes is two or three really expensive things needing work at the same time to blow your budget out of the water. And often there’s no clear answer on what’s truly urgent.
If it ever does calm down and stabilize, beware. That means something expensive is about to break. It’s always something!
But really, it does get a lot less hectic after you close, get utilities and address records sorted, finish any big upfront renovations you want to do, and get most of your stuff unpacked.
Never relax… The universe can sense when you’re content and will balance itself.
I think after 18 months or so you will have a good feeling for what you bought. There will still be things to do. There will ALWAYS be things to do (some of which will be very expensive). But as far as coming to terms with exactly where everything is, what the quirks are, and whether you can live with them, you need all 4 seasons and a bit.
Didn’t think about seeing how everything holds up during all the seasons. Windows and AC are only a few years old but the furnace is closer to end of life than new. Guess we will see how it goes this winter. I’m sure there will be a lot more to consider that I don’t even know about yet.
We got a new furnace and the super old one was basically just as good. Get a good carbon monoxide alarm for your bedroom and also one right by the machine.
About 2 year mark things start to fall in place at year 4 it will truly feel like home. It’s
It is what?
I’m dying here with anticipation.
It’s… is what happens when you are at year 5 in your home and hear the pitter patter of 2 small feet getting into something they shouldn’t.
