My wife and I are about 3 weeks from closing on our first house and I am losing my god damn mind. All of our finances/budget work out while still having savings for emergency repairs, our inspection went well after having to back out on the first we offered on (tree fell on the house after offer was accepted, thought we could fix but it was a wash) and we really like the area and first impressions of our neighbors.
I know buying a house is a top “most stressful thing” an average person can go through, but this is a lot harder than I thought and I didn’t downplay it in my head. I am guessing I will feel like this for the first year or two and progressively it will become normal right? We have a lot of support from our families (financially, emotionally and labor/handypeople) so I am still optimistic about the whole thing, but my appetite is non existent and insomnia seems to be working in overdrive.
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…
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 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
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 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.
Water is entropy manifest to constantly remind you that anything you do is temporary and laughably futile on geologic timescales.
My basement flooded out first year. One sump pump and Reno later I still worry about it but to be honest every time I hear that pump go is music to me ears knowing it’s water diverted away from my house.
About 2 year mark things start to fall in place at year 4 it will truly feel like home. It’s
It is what?
I’m dying here with anticipation.
It’s… is what happens when you are at year 5 in your home and hear the pitter patter of 2 small feet getting into something they shouldn’t.
What’s that sound? Is it supposed to make it? Did it make it before? Is that wet? Why is it wet? That bug is new, haven’t seen one like that. Electric bill is higher this month. Got the escrow statement; it went up again. That crack… Seems longer. Door squeaks again. Was the drain recessed like that? Are you sure? That’s loose, should probably do something about it. Gotta run to the hardware store. They’re backordered on that thing that melted in the fire. The AC is dripping again. Is the water pressure lower than usual? What’s that smell? Is it coming from under there? Why is the milk spoiled? Is the fridge warm to you? Grass is long again. Sprinkler got run over by a neighbor. We need to do something about the dead tree.
Literally things said at my house IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS. Holy shit why.
Gotta love having an old house. It’s simultaneously reassuring and deeply stressful when a professional looks at something that seems really bad and just says, “Well, I can tell from the layers of paint that’s been there a long time. So if it hasn’t become a problem in all that time, it’s probably fine. But give me a call if your house starts falling apart.”
Sounds similar to my mental chatter about our house.
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.)
If you’re really freaking out this much, I’m guessing you bought a house you could barely afford.
You probably won’t ever calm down if that’s the case.
Have fun paying taxes on it.
I dunno about that. I bought a house well within what I could afford. The bank actually thought we made a mistake and reminded us they would approve a loan double the size of what we asked.
All it takes is two or three really expensive things needing work at the same time to blow your budget out of the water. And often there’s no clear answer on what’s truly urgent.
This was my initial thought as well, and I hope I’m wrong too.
Our first home was at a price of ~150% of our gross wage combined. We found the payments very manageable; and although I was stressed, it was more my youth as a poor kid than the reality of the budgeting before us.
Thankfully she had the confidence for us both! After a few months when I saw the numbers were as she predicted, I got better about it.
When you’re tired from work but you’ve still got to clean the whole thing to ‘protect your investment’.
Also because it’s nice to live somewhere clean and tidy?
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.
a bill for several hundred dollars
After a few years I was able to sell it to someone else as their starter home, and use the equity I built
What boomer bullshit is this. Its 2025 you have got to be dreaming.
Huh? I bought my first house in 2020. It was $200,000 for a run-down house in a bad part of Minneapolis. It was my first home, so I could use the first-time home buyer benefit to only need $10,000 for the down payment, which I had built up over a few years of saving. While in the house, fixing my garage door when it broke was $250, and repairing my AC and Furnace each time they broke was $300-500. Stuff that was bigger than that was covered by insurance. I fixed everything else myself, however poorly. The money I got for selling the house in 2023 for $230,000 was enough to afford the down payment on the next place after paying back my first mortgage and the realtor fees.
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.
Never relax… The universe can sense when you’re content and will balance itself.
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!
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.
