Page 4 Friday, September 25, 2020
THE GARDEN ISLAND
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Home costs donât stop at a down payment space.â Begin to budget for renovations, especially if you need to hire a general contractor. Wolf recommends getting on the contractorâs schedule during their low season and buying some items when they happen to be on sale, even if the installation has to wait.
Sara Rathner NERDWALLET If youâre saving for your first home, thereâs no shortage of advice out there â some of it questionable, even if you do have an avocado toast habit. Still, itâs true that your down payment may be the biggest check you ever write. But once you move in, itâs also true that the cash tends to just keep flying out of your bank account like that money-with-wings emoji. If you drain your savings on closing day, youâll have to delay furnishings or repairs, to say nothing of less-pressing cosmetic changes. A sizable cash cushion makes the cost of owning a home more manageable. But even if you lack that cushion, it helps to at least know what to expect and what else you may need to finance or start saving for again. Hereâs what I learned. Things will break Iâve lost count of the handymen, electricians and plumbers who have paraded through the home my husband and I bought in October 2019. As I type this, our dryer is being repaired for the second time since we moved in. All told, weâve spent around $1,300 on small fixes. Repairing issues yourself is cost-effective, but only if you know what youâre doing. If a repair involves dangerous work, or you lack the skills and equipment to do it safely and correctly, hire a licensed and insured professional. What should you do? w Pay close attention to the home inspection. âLeaking roofs, mold, electrical and plumbing issues are the mostly commonly noted concerns on an inspection
JOHN MINCHILLO / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
A homeowner tours their new home, in Washingtonville, N.Y. report,â says Day Coker, owner of house running.â AC by Day C, an HVAC maintenance Youâll want to make your and repair company based in High house a home Point, North Carolina. If the inspecAs a renter, you may have put up tion turns up issues, negotiate with with lumpy sofas or rickety chairs, the seller to either repair them or thinking eventually youâd have lower the selling price. ârealâ furniture in your own home w Find out the age of major applilike the kind you see at a carefully ances. When you can estimate how staged open house. But youâre purmany years an appliance has left, chasing a structure; the furnishings you can save up for its replacetypically donât come with it. ment. We spent around $8,000 on furniw Create a repair fund. Aim to ture this year. save around $5,000, says Chelsea Another sneaky expense? Lipford Wolf, co-host of the âToSmaller accessories like towel dayâs Homeownerâ TV show and racks, shower curtains, shelves, creator of âChecking In With Cheland storage bins that make a space sea,â a home improvement blog functional. and video series. âThat would cover most home systems that you What should you do? would need to repair to keep your w Save on furniture and decor.
Brand-new, solid wood furniture is expensive, but antiques are well-constructed and can be had for a fraction of the price. Between antique stores, estate sales and Craigslist, we spent less to score high-quality pieces. w Do the small stuff yourself. When in doubt, watch a tutorial on YouTube or ask for guidance at a hardware store. Iâve hung art, shelving and curtain rods, and our current project is painting our guest room, which doubles as my office. We hire a handyman only for more complicated work. w Plan for the big stuff. âBeyond the first year, thatâs when you see people taking on bigger projects,â Wolf says. âTheyâve had a chance to live in their house and use the
Even âmove-in-readyâ homes need work A new neighbor told me she spent $500 on an electrician to replace older, ungrounded electrical outlets throughout her house. We lucked out with modern outlets, but not enough of them. We hired an electrician at $75 an hour to install more than a dozen additional outlets. Neither our house nor our neighborâs was sold as a fixer-upper. âThe first year of homeownership is usually spent finding out all of the flaws you didnât notice during open house and the final walkthrough,â Coker says. What should you do? w Be nosy at the open house. Pepper the real estate agent with questions, flip all the light switches and open all the closets. Look for furniture in an illogical place, which may be covering damage. âItâs perfectly acceptable to lift up a rug to make sure thereâs nothing funky under there,â Wolf says. w Assess what can wait for later. Your home inspector can identify what needs to be fixed now and what can wait. You can begin saving for future renovations while you make do with the cramped kitchen or lackluster backyard. w Donât put off maintenance. Little issues balloon into expensive repairs. Routine maintenance on even new appliances and systems can help them last longer and run more efficiently.
Mortgage rates tick up to 2.9%, remain at historic lows ASSOCIATED PRESS SILVER SPRING, Md. â U.S. average rates on long-term mortgages rose slightly this week but remain at historically low levels. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year home loan edged up to 2.90% from 2.87% last week. One year ago, the rate averaged 3.64%. The average rate on the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also rose, to 2.40% from 2.35% last week. Low interest rates have made demand for housing even stronger, but supply remains scarce. The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that the number of existing homes for sale in August was 1.49 million units, a decline of 18.6% from this time last year. Although sales of existing homes rose 2.4% in August to its highest level since 2006, the lack of inventory is pushing prices higher, causing some concern. NAR said the median price for an existing single-family home reached $315,000 in August, up 11.7% from last year.
US homes sales rise 2.4% in August ASSOCIATED PRESS SILVER SPRING, Md. â Sales of existing homes rose 2.4% in August to its highest level since 2006 as the housing market recovers from a widespread shutdown in the spring brought on by the coronavirus outbreak. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6 million homes sold last month. Sales are up 10.5% from a year ago and back to pre-COVID-19 levels of early 2020. Although the pace of sales has slowed significantly after back-toback months of more than 20% gains, itâs the third straight monthly gain after big, consecutive declines in March, April and May. The median price for an existing single-family home reached $315,000 in August, up 11.7% from August 2019. Last month was the first time the median price for a home breached $300,000.
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