Reflections on Home Buying and Homeownership (3 Months In)

(a beautiful sight from January 30th)

Three months ago today, Adam and I became homeowners. It was a blustery January day that represented a threshold we were crossing as adults and would mark the beginning of a thirty-year journey in our home.

While I am by no means an expert after only one home purchase and three months of homeownership in my past, I’m a reflective person who attempts to learn something from every life experience and have already committed a lot of time thinking about what I wish I had known before diving into this next phase in our lives. Home buying is uniquely stressful and uncertain, filled with second guesses, emotion, and a lot of money. I hope that a few of the thoughts I’ll share today will help readers contemplating buying a home or relatable to those more experienced home owners out there.

So, here's what I've learned...

...as a home buyer:

Consult those you trust

The best place to start when buying a home is close to home—start by consulting with those you know who have been through the process. Adam and I sought the advice of both sets of parents, an uncle and cousin, with each consultation serving a different purpose. 

We consulted Adam’s cousin, who recommended the real estate agent he and his wife had used. We consulted our parents when we felt particularly emotional. We consulted Adam’s uncle on financial aspects of the process. Each party contributed their own expertise and, as a result, we felt like we had good council throughout the experience.

(thankfully, we avoided accidents and problems in the house-buying process with help from family)

Know your numbers

Financially-prudent people may not be the sexiest or most fun at the party, but they're our kind of people.  Sure, we like to splurge on certain things but we had the goal of saving for a house for several years now. That is why, when the time came, we were able to put down the recommended 20%.

Going into this process, we knew how much we could afford to put down, in a monthly mortgage payment and in all of the ways our expenses would change as homeowners (buying a lawn mower for the first time, for example). We had spent some very unsexy time developing a budget in Excel. No, it’s not glamorous but that budget and its numbers were the reason we made the permanent transition from renters to owners. 

(emotion + a pretty house can lead to a dangerous financial situation...unless you stick to your budget!)

Don't forget to investigate flood insurance

This is one reality we learned the hard way: always check what type of flood zone your potential home is in before you make an offer and (ideally) before you fall madly in love with it. Our home, despite all of its charms, is in a high-risk flood zone thanks to a teensy-weensy little creek that runs next to our neighbor's house. This categorization added a few hundred dollars a month (yup) to our insurance premiums and we had to weigh that cost (as well as the possibility of a flood) in with our decision to purchase the house.

Lesson learned: Check FloodSmart.gov for the risk profile of a property before placing your bid.

(the origin of that flood insurance)

...and as a home owner:

It's a marathon, not a sprint

My first piece of advice is one I need to repeat back to myself in the mirror regularly:  keep expectations realistic when it comes to renovations and decorating.  This is a challenge when I seek out inspiring homes and spaces in blog land on a daily basis. 

One of my shortcomings is my terrible impatience, but I've had to temper my expectations for what we can do when to our house. I’d love to bring a big crew and interior designer in tomorrow to help me realize my vision for this home, but we opted to buy our “forever” home at 28 so we are doing smaller improvements before taking on more extensive renovations down the road. So, don’t expect to see a fully decorated home shared on this blog next week or six months from now…but when we get there, I promise I won’t be able to stop blogging about it!

(call us young and naive, but we're always excited to work on our home)

Remember to live outside of your home

When Adam and I decided to purchase a home we had a series of conversations that all circled back to the same point: we didn't want to stretch our finances so thin that we were depriving ourselves to live in a house we couldn't actually afford. No one sets out to become ‘house poor’, but too often it happens when eyes are bigger than bank accounts. 

Thankfully, my husband is both gifted mathematically and financially conservative, so he put his skills to work sifting through our budget. We made sure to continue to allocate funds for annual vacations, season tickets for the Phillies and Sixers, and other non-essentials that greatly improve the quality of our lives. We are more than just homeowners and, thanks to a lot of planning and saving, our life together can continue to happily exist inside and—now—outside of our home. 

(we can still enjoy this view at a Phillies game)

Celebrate the little victories and small changes

We are novices at just about everything that comes with homeownership; but instead of letting those feelings overwhelm us, we've decided to embrace the small changes we take on and the new skills we are gaining in this process. Sure, I’d never taken a ceiling down before or ever really spent much time tackling yard work, but we are embracing these new tasks and the progress we've achieved with our own hands. 

At the end of a long day of working around the house, Adam and I can often be heard patting ourselves on the back. And you know what? There ain't nothing wrong with that. 

(a small but hard-fought victory: new hardware for the living room built-ins)

There you have it: my perspective of home buying and homeownership as we pass the 3-month mark. Will my opinions change over time? Will we get tired of all the DIY over time? Sure, to both of those questions; but hopefully, Adam and I can always remember these first few months and just how special and new they feel.

How did your home buying experience differ from ours? 

Do you have any tips or advice to offer new home buyers or homeowners? 

I'd love to hear them!