Buying a house can be both terrifying and exhilarating. The purchase is likely the biggest one that you’ll make in your life. If you’re diligent, you will have saved up at least 20% for the down payment. However, you may be surprised to discover that there are many other expenses you’ll likely have when you first move in.
You should have several thousand more dollars available to you so you can face the many initial costs that come with buying a house that you may not have considered:
Inspections
Don’t try to save money by not having the house inspected. A good inspector can discover flaws in the home, and you can ask the buyer to pay for the improvements before you buy the house. When we had our house inspected, the inspector discovered that one of the tubes to the water heater was hooked up incorrectly and could potentially cause carbon monoxide poisoning!
Having said that, our realtor knew that our money was tight, so she tried to find an economical inspector. While I appreciate this, I wish that we would have gone with a more expensive, more experienced inspector because the inspector we used missed several significant issues such as many of the electrical plugins not working.
Closing Costs
Depending on whether you’re in a buyer’s or seller’s market, you may be able to ask the buyer to pay your closing cost. Or, some buyers and sellers agree to split the costs. You may also have to pay them entirely yourself, and closing costs can easily run several thousand dollars.
Rental Moving Truck
If you’re young and energetic and have a lot of friends, you may want to just rent a moving truck and move your belongings yourself. However, many people find that by the time they buy a house, their friends aren’t so keen on helping anymore. Then you’ll likely need to hire a moving company to help you get your stuff into your new home. Depending on if you’re just moving across town or across the country, you’ll likely have to pay several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.
Luckily, when we moved across the country and bought our house, my husband’s employer paid our moving fees, which were well over $12,000!
Replacing the Locks
As soon as you get the keys to your new home, you’ll want to change the locks. Even if the former owners seem like the nicest people in the world, you don’t know who they gave the keys to. While most people have no problems with the people who formerly owned the home, to protect yourself and your property, it’s better to change the locks.
Appliances
Unless you state in your bid on the house that you want the seller to leave the appliances, you may find yourself without a stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. Replacing all of those in one fell swoop can cost you thousands of dollars, even if you look for used ones.
New Flooring
If you’re lucky, you’ll move into a house with nice flooring. If that’s not the case, you’ll need to replace the flooring. If the carpet is bad enough (and we saw some houses with really nasty, stained carpet when we were house hunting), you can ask the sellers to give you an allowance to replace the flooring. Otherwise, you’ll be looking at several thousand dollars in flooring costs, depending on the flooring that you get and the size of your house.
Blinds/Curtains
When we bought our house, every room had ugly green mini blinds. We’ve slowly replaced them as we’re able, but 3.5 years after buying the house, three rooms still have those ugly blinds. Almost every day I look at them and think how ugly they are. If you’d like to put your own touch on your home, or if your new home doesn’t even have window treatments, you’ll want to have money available to replace them.
Lawn Mower
If you’ve never owned a house before, you likely don’t have the supplies that you’ll need to maintain your property outdoors. You’ll need a lawn mower, either a push mower for a smaller yard or a riding lawn mower for a larger yard. This will easily run you $500 to several thousand dollars.
Yard Tools
You’ll also need yard tools. Even something so simple as a garden house will need to be bought. Don’t forget pruning shears, perhaps a chainsaw (we had to buy one the first few months after we moved into our house because a huge cactus fell down and we needed to cut it into smaller pieces to carry it to the garbage), an outdoor broom, rakes, and a shovel, just to name a few.
Paint
If you’re going to paint a few rooms, the best time to do that is when the house is empty before you move your furniture in. Not only will you have to buy gallons of paint, but you’ll need to buy paint rollers, pans, protective plastic for your carpet, paint tape, etc.
Kitchen Cabinets
Many homes have outdated kitchen cabinets. Our home was built in 1998 and still has the original cabinets. They’re painted a pale pink. Yuck! While we won’t replace the cabinets entirely, we do plan to sand them and repaint them white. We’d also like to add some hardware as ours currently don’t have any.
Light Fixtures
Light fixtures should be basic, but you may find yourself in a home with light fixtures that you just can’t stand! Our home has two bathrooms, and both have a strip of six lights across the top of the bathroom mirror. I feel like I’m on Broadway in my changing room.
If you have light fixtures like this or even worse, you may want to change those out to make your home have your own touch.
Repairs
Don’t forget that experts recommend that you save at least 1 to 3% of the cost of your house for repairs annually. If you buy a house for $200,000, you should set aside at least $2,000 to $6,000 per year for repairs, but don’t be surprised if you have to fork over that money sooner rather than later. I hear from many people how they face an expensive repair shortly after moving into their new home.
In our case, the water heater went out within the first six days of moving in. Even with a homeowner’s warranty, we had to pay $700 out of pocket.
Conclusions
Buying a new house can be exciting, but nothing else will hit your wallet quite so hard. Not only will you have to pay a down payment, but you’ll likely also face several of the costs mentioned above. Make sure that you buy a house that leaves you enough room after the down payment to be able to afford some of these expenses.
Of course, you can make some changes gradually, as we’re doing with our home, but you have to be willing to live with things like pink kitchen cabinets and green mini-blinds until you have enough funds to replace them. Many people prefer to just have the money available so they can make changes before they are fully settled in the home.
