Ask Lemmy

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.

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...

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Honestly for me it was when we moved in that things started getting more calm.

I did not like all the uncertainty of the transaction hanging above my head.

Now it’s been a few years and we’ve added gardens and done a few upgrades and we have our furniture and spaces, and it’s my happy place.

The magic wears off as soon as the first expensive thing breaks.

After all the painting is done

It's been about ten years in my house, the list of needed repairs is getting longer faster than I can fix them.

The house is probably at least a hundred years old, so you might not have that issue.

After you close, you’re going to start doing projects on the place. Some you’ll plan, others you’ll discover along the way. One day you’ll be out of time and/or money for more of them - that’s when you’ll calm down. Enjoy the ride!

About 2 year mark things start to fall in place at year 4 it will truly feel like home. It's

After closing it starts to reduce. Doesn't hit zero until one has fixed the major systems (by doing or paying) and inflation makes your old apartment Bella expensive. (Locked in rent is nice.)

The intense, intense, like your feeling pretty much dies down after closing and you can get a bit of a high having your own place. Assuming its a fixer upper (I have no basis for anything else given affordability in my lifetime) you will unfortunately get headaches with repairs and refurbishing and taxes and all that good stuff. Assuming you bought something you could afford with a 15 year fixed (now you see why my experiences are with fixer uppers) but got a 30 year fixed but overpaying on a 15 year timeline you will have a nice feeling knowing you can drop down to pay the minimum if things are tough and then if you can keep the overpayments going for 5 years or so you will get to the point where its almost impossible to be underwater which is a great feeling. If you have assesments (I have never had something with its own private lot) you can find that the taxes and assesments alone can be pretty close to what rent would be depending on how crazy or reasonable the rental market it but at least it stays stable at or below what rent would be so that is nice, but it never just goes away as an expense and even if you have your own plot if you are not spending what typical assesments are for upkeep then you are likely letting your place go.

Just got past 1 year ownership of a new build and had the 1-year warranty inspection done and worked with the builder to do the repairs. I think it has only started to calm down now, as we've finally experienced one year of living in the house and we now know what to expect throughout the year. Except for emergencies and major unexpected issues of course.

When you're tired from work but you've still got to clean the whole thing to 'protect your investment'.