summer of sam on my pockets.

1. replace ac unit - 3500
2. fix furnace - 1000
3. upstairs plumbing - 1300
4. replace water heater - 1000
5. water extraction - ????

right now, an apartment sounds like heaven.

In the past, oh, seven years, I've replaced: Roof, A/C and furnace, water heater (it was first to go), fridge, W/D, garage door opener (torsion spring broke..I replaced it myself...won't do THAT again; replaced opener since it went kuput too).

But at the same time, when all the kids leave...we're moving out and renting this puppy, cuz it'll be paid off by then.

this is the 2nd time with the hot water heater since we've been in the house. I'm just glad my wife caught it before it did too much damage.

I'm extra frustated this time becuz I came into a couple grand of cash because we just did a refi and now its gotta go towards this. oh well.

Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg
http://www.Tupreme.com

still looking at an empty formal dining room. Finally got furniture in the formal living room. Thats paid off on the 7th. Backyard still unfinished. But we have painted the entire inside. Baseboards and walls. Replaced the water heater, garbage disposal. New spring on garage door. replaced 2 dead ceiling fans. Repaired the AC units multiple times. One just needs to be replaced. Its only been 6 years though. We are remodeling our downstairs bathroom and replacing the flooring on the first floor. Cant afford to pay people so youtube and a father inlaw that is handy will do. Should be easy enough. I love home ownership.

kinda been waiting til the kids got older. was gonna look at getting the kitchen and dining room done since I got some money back from the refi and don't have to pay September mortgage.

plans changed since the water heater broke. it was 950, plus and another 400 for the carpet folks to dry/dehumidify the parts that got wet. oh well.

and i get stressed out/depressed when i see that i am further away from this than i was 4 years ago
I have spent ~50,000 on a property that will never be mine... and i will keep doing this until....
i have no equity in this bitch, i cant refinance if i need to, this is not an asset on my income statement, i cant get a loan against this, cant sell.. nothing
my landlord can wake up tomorrow and ask me to leave (and i cant afford moving costs, lol)
its all precarious
tbh i get that there are expenses to owning a home - but i *still* idealize the notion of a piece of this earth that i can call mine.
and i really really want to have that.

my kids have grown up in here. this is the first house I've ever lived in, but this is the norm for them.

I've been in this place for a minute, so I knew it things would need to be replaced soon. just didn't think it all hit within a few months. hella frustrating.

>I've been in this place for a minute, so I knew it things
>would need to be replaced soon. just didn't think it all hit
>within a few months. hella frustrating.

and this must really suck
almost bought a house a few years ago and i think i would've been housepoor, lol
couldnt afford any repairs
im trying to set up myself up to buy a house in a few years...and making sure im keeping close my one friend who repairs houses for a living- she can do just about everything including roofing.

*we friends for life, now*

fridges, washers, dryers and ovens...they all seem like shiny pieces of shit that are made to fail as soon as the one-year warranty expires. so you can buy another one in three-four years when you can't stand the defects anymore.

so they're good so far. technology moves too fast things that should be static for years.

Says who?


Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg
http://www.Tupreme.com

It’s probably the best financial investment you can make

Even if you don’t gain a ton of equity it’s still better than renting in most places unless you move around every few years.

I moved around a lot as a kid from apartment to apartment. my kids won't know that life.

Homeowner is more responsibility but less uncertainty in terms where you will live.

I have had so many people need to live with me over the course of home ownership due to landlord tenant issues, rent increases or simple lack of money.

There is no price for having the piece of mind that I will always have a place to live. I like ownership because I feel rooted.

I am willing to take on the responsibility.

best shingle, 10 yr workmanship guarantee, redoing the vents for the soffits (old ones are paperboard or something).

Then she asked about siding and she wound up ordering new signing, premium color, extra wide, with the styrofoam insulation or whatever attached to it, plus new wider capping on all the windows, all driving up the $$$ factor.

Me, I woulda been fine with the basic roof and not touching the siding.

All comes out to another year of mortgage payments.

no money outta pocket. the insurance paid for everything. we actually got money back. I thought it was a scam, but everthing came out exactly like the roofer said.

only issue is I don't like the color. I wanted a lil flavor to the roof. like a red or blue. my wife wanted gray. she won cuz either way, new roof. boring.

said our old ass roof is still in good condition.

Gotta get a new one before we sell tho. Roofer was trying to get me the hook up with some money back too. I was so hype until the adjuster popped my bubble.

that blows.

Over a decade ago, when we first bought this house brand spanking new, it came with a homeowner's warranty for 5 years. Once that warranty expired I went ahead and kept it going. Sometimes it's frustrating to shell out 60 bucks a month for what appears to be no good reason. However when shit does break, and it will, they come out and replace whatever needs replacing, for a $75 service fee.

So far that warranty has replaced a hot water heater, a furnace, a handful of circuit breakers, a toilet, a fridge ice maker, and an air conditioner unit.

At this very moment I am sitting at a hot ass house, waiting for the AC guy to come on Thursday to replace the compressor. That's one of the curses of the home warranty, they come and do the work when they damn well please. Our air went out a week and a half ago. They sent a guy out for 75 bucks and he did a diagnosis. He found out that it was the compressor. He put in an order, and the home warranty company had to approve the order. Then they had to order the part. And... now I'm waiting for them to come and put the part in. All the while my little family has had to endure sweltering heat.

When it's all said and done though, we will have paid about $200 for a $1,500 + job.

we used it a few times to replace/repair stuff. our first hot water heater busted not long after we moved in here. the warranty helped a lot cuz I was broke af. basically house poor.

I dropped it as we got appliances replaced. it was just another bill. I hated paying the monthly cost, the cost to diagnos, and then eventually the cost to repair/replace the item. felt like we might as well just replace the broken item with the money that would've been spent on the warranty.

I've maybe saved a couple of bucks here and there. Like, I haven't had to use it in two years, and I've paid in about $1400 in that time, but my AC repair would've cost almost $1500+, so it's a wash.

It's just easier on my psyche to give dude $75 and another $100 for freon recovery, than to write him a check for 2 grand.

Heard too many horror stories of people waiting a long ass time to get a piece or a part because the Warranty people were bullshitting.

Had a dude tell me he was without hot water for 2 weeks because his water heater was on back order.

I feel like a warranty is one of those “hope something breaks so I can use it” type deals.

Lemme knock on some wood.

I remember waiting but not that long. that's crazy.

if I have something urgent, I go to yelp and thumbtack. request the service I need and let the contractors respond. I normally get some really good prices and quick service.

my water heater crapped out on Friday night, like 10ish. had both the plumber and the water extractor guy there the next day. thought I'd be waiting since it was a holiday weekend.

When I thought the AC was something simple I was willing to drop a couple of bucks to get it fixed immediately. I called a local contractor and they came out that day. Dude replaced a $200 part and the AC still didn't blow cold. He guessed it was probably the compressor, but told me that we were about to enter financial deep waters.

I told him I had a home warranty and I'd let them handle it. He wished me luck and did me the solid of hooking everything back up like he found it.

That was two weeks ago! Two weeks of sleeping in tropical heat like the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. Thank goodness for a co-worker who let us borrow a portable AC this week.

Hopefully, we'll be back and running tomorrow, cuz more GA heat is coming...

both times it was a quick fix.

If your AC fan won’t turn without you pushing the fan first and it doesn’t push out cold air the first thing to check is the AC capacitor.

$20 and a quick YouTube and I was back in biz.

last year I was hanging a shelf. I used a stud finder to locate a place to secure the first bracket. While making the pilot hole I feel the bit go past drywall and then I hit wood, when I pulled the bit back out of the wall, water starting shooting from the hole.

we called an emergency plumber who tore a hole in the wall and we see that I nearly died because whoever fixed the house up before we bought it did a shitty job. I hit a plastic water pipe that was next to electrical cable without a metal plate in place. I was a half inch above the live wire.

So, we called in a contractor to bring things up to code. Then the trouble started.

This guy starts talking his talk "I can fix this thing here, and this thing....all on the low low!" He gave us a deal but then shit went downhill over time until he just stopped showing up. He left us with a mountain of tools and materials and stopped returning calls and stopped showing up leaving the house in a half done state. WTF.

Total cost for that guy? 10s of K.

So we hired a second contractor who said "Oh my. I am so sorry you had to go through that. You know what? I'll fix everything."

Aaaaaaaand then he stopped showing up a few months later.

Total cost for that guy? 10s of K.

So after some needed legal counsel we were told to find a contractor who would nut the fuck up and finish the job because any legal action would take years to complete and even if things are ruled in or favor there is no promise we would see our money again.

So we started vetting contractors again and its the same shit.
The come, they say "Oh my god, I am so sorry this happened....I'll assemble a statement of work and pricing for you"
but everytime now they ghost us.



UGH.

Can you find an actual company instead of a contractor?

You really spending 20K+ for work that ain’t even finished?

This sounds scary as hell.

>Can you find an actual company instead of a contractor?

thats the plan. we tried to cut some corners but in the end....we should have just paid for the right-but-expensive work upfront.
>
>You really spending 20K+ for work that ain’t even finished?
>

yeah dude. feels bad. I mean, in some ways, the house has leveled the fuck up from where it was a year ago. But in other ways we have been fucked.
>
>This sounds scary as hell.


You have no idea.

hopefully the marriage survives and the house stuff comes together. I've heard of stories like this before where contractors bail after getting some upfront monies. shit's pathetic to take from people who just wanna a better living space. worse that there's little recourse.

Independant general contractors it seems are a volatile mix of artist, criminal, visionary, toddler, problem solver, village idiot, ninja, bum


they can do amazing things when motivated, but they get in the way of their own success by maintaining bad business hygiene

Are they not established businesses in your community?

first guy we found through a friend. homie did their house and did amazing work - the pictures of the work is what sold us.

second guy came recommended from a contractor we've had success with who was too busy to take on work.

the other folks are all from our networks

He put together a crew to fix up houses he was buying. We wanted to finish our attic (split level, so pretty big). We already had a quote from a contractor that was $50k+; our friend said no, that's ridiculous, he'll charge us at cost for his guys to keep them working when they're not working on one of his houses.

only problem is he started taking jobs for other people too (instead of just his own houses) and putting them first, so our job became the job that they were doing only when we'd badger him, and streaks of work usually lasted a week or less. Constant promises of we'll be there next week, we'll get this done, etc. In the end it took four years and my wife saying to him 'you will finish this job before the baby comes or we'll get someone else' to get anything like a regular work schedule out of him/them for the last few months. Certain things never did get done, some things got done poorly (the ceiling, especially which irks the shit out of me with all its cracks, poor seams and patches, which I guess is what happens when only one guy on the crew shows up and tries to do a ceiling himself), much of the painting needed touching up, etc. Ended up costing us I think $43k or so; probably would have been better off taking the original contractor's quote.

I'm getting a new roof and paint job. Insurance is covering the roof and half the paint due to hail damage. $4500 out of pocket.

While they are doing the paint work I'm having them remove the shutters and just add trim around the front windows to update it a bit.

But I also have a small wood front porch that's painted the house colors. Its seen better days so I dont want to waste money repainting it. I want to redo it with composite decking like I have in the back so I dont have to worry about touching up paint all the time. Waiting for the estimate on how much thats going to cost but I'm bracing myself.

Then my front door is going to look kind of dated so I want to replace that too. And the exterior lights.

Then I have a retractable awning over the back patio that A. isn't in great condition anymore and B. is going to look extra ugly when everything else is all freshened up. Hoping I can get lucky and insurance will replace it because it also has hail damage.

I dont like half assing stuff or having things mismatched so now I basically need to redo the entire fucking exterior of my house. A lot of it just needs to be done anyway and its going to look 100x better but damn.

Exterior is wood but a lot of people are changing to siding on our street. Regardless we need to update and paint or replace it.

We need a new deck

Also need some serious landscaping.

The more I think about it the sicker I get. Do we spend all this money to make these changes and sell it or just throw some pain on it?

$13k. I was thinking maybe $5k.

Fuck.

That.