Owning a home is fun and I do enjoy it for the most part, but there are so many things that have affected our finances since we took ownership of our home.Closing on our home was a relatively smooth process. My husband and I were actually away on a cruise the week before, so it was a little hectic going over some last-minute stuff with our realtor — especially when we told everyone involved in the process that we would be out of town.
Wondering what was going on, I reviewed our property tax statement and saw that taxes in our area have gone up quite a bit. In fact,have gone up in our area consistently since we purchased our house. What was saved in our escrow account came up short. Paying a slightly higher monthly rate is inconvenient, but it's not detrimental to our finances right now.While our monthly payment has gone up a bit with taxes, I'm still glad we have a. With an adjustable-rate mortgage, the interest rate can fluctuate with the market, making your monthly payments somewhat unpredictable. I couldn't imagine juggling that along with varying property taxes.
I wish we would have asked more questions, however, because one of the hidden costs we've endured is a plumbing issue related to some huge trees in our yard. It cost us $1,200 to clear tree roots from a pipe, but the roots just grow back. A company quoted us $9,000 to fix the problem permanently, but right now the initial job is still working so we're sticking with that.
This is a great an honest reflection of homeownership. Great quick read!