-No rickety three flights of stairs from apt to the outdoors and car-which in bad weather holds me hostage inside.
-I have a family room AND living room
-I only have to walk a few feet to do laundry from my kitchen, rather then out a door down three flights to a musty basement. And I can do laundry whenever rather then waiting til child is asleep or husband is home.
-I can actually move around my kitchen.
-I don't have to worry about the mold and the must growing in my walls
-No landlord.
-I have a garage.
-I have a freakin fenced in backyard and patio.
-I also have my first grown up patio set
-My kids are stupid happy to be able to go out and play anytime.

- I FINALLY feel like a grownup!


Oh and I no longer have to be concerned about the creepy dudes driving slowly in the alley behind my home.

We moved into our house in the burbs last week and I've been disconnected ever since until two hours ago. It's been a great experience and we're super happy. I never realized I'd be stupid happy in the suburbs but it happened!

my roommate had to deplete all of her savings last week for emergency repairs...fuck home ownership

I don't wanna hear about the perks of homeownership.

i have fenced in yards and a garden and a shed and a basement and laundry and when the pooper backs up into the house because of all the tree roots i call the landlord and she pays the dude two grand, not me.

Wait until your ac unit breaks in a couple weeks or you need a new roof.

I hope this injection of positivism doesn't make you stop bitching, because that would make the facebook status updates way less interesting.

2 words...Home Warranty..It costs about 425.00/year but The best investment a home owner can make..It will cover a lot of stuff. So when my washer went, it was either pay 250 for a new motor, or get 250 from the home warranty company towards a new one..When the poo-poo backs up in the garage, they send out their plumber to fix it..You have to pay a 60 dollar appointment fee, but all said work is usually covered...Fridge, Hot water heater, house heater etc. all covered.

Congrats, Jen!

This is the right answer. Good on y'all Charli!

Agreed. When you can swing it, home ownership is the way to go.

Congrats jen!

Since becoming a homeowner years and years ago, I have learned to drywall, run electric wire through new construction as well as through 120 year old lathe & plaster, install copper piping, lay roofing tile, put up outdoor fencing, frame walls, lay carpet, tile floors and walls, and repair old horsehair plaster ceilings.

Home ownership and doing all the home repairs myself gives me a great feeling of empowerment - I feel confident that I can build or repair most anything I might need.

Its also made me very thankful for my education and great job - I would hate to have to earn a living doing any of the things I listed above.

I thought this was going to be about saving up a couple months of paychecks and buying a whole neighborhood in Detroit:

[url]http://www.homes.com/Content/ListingSearchResults.cfm?City=DETROIT&State=MI&Bedrooms=&FullBaths=&MinPrice=1&MaxPrice=2000&PriceRange=&AmenitiesList=&PropType=*&TotalRecs=1874&MinSqFt=&MaxSqFt=&LotSize=&MinYear=&MaxYear=&Canada=0&OrderBy=PRICE%3AA
[/url]

I have no idea why that is not a link.

Because there is a space before your [/url]

I would love to know what mutty knows. I got power tools for Christmas and have only used the drill. I need to learn how to dry wall, lay tile, etc. And while agree home ownership is great, I sure wish there was one extra person around the house to help me move furniture and stuff.

Since my wife & i bought a new house last august:

- water heater broke
- dishwasher died
- garage door busted
- part of our wooden fence blew over

For a total cost of near $2500. That's not counting all the little maintenance things like light-bulbs and window screens and lawn care, etc.

Owning a house is just another way to throw money away like an apartment, except you have some sort of "investment" "at the end". (Although, in today's economy, that investment amounts to sh|te.)

Wow, you homeowners sure complain a lot. Why exactly did you buy a home?

4 bedroom apartments are hard to find.

tax breaks

accruing equity/getting large returns on investment

shitty property owners cant keep raising rent

i can fuck with things as I like and dont have to wait for landlord to get his fat ass over to fix things

easier to hide bodies

I wish I had a 3 bedroom condo for my family instead of a house....i don't need a yard...i guess the kid likes it though!

Since selling our condo and buying our first real house in october, barkerette and I have had no huge problems. The house has a brand new roof on it, so we don't have to worry about that. One of the showers is leaking somewhere, and I've been sealing and re-sealing it. I know I will eventually find that leak, but that's the worst of our problems.

I love owning my home. We eat most meals in the backyard (when it's nice out), spend most weekends working in the garden, and spent the winter re-doing the baseboards, painting the hall, livingroom and bedroom. The front and back yard look 100x better then when we moved in (thanks to barkerette being a certified horticulturist). Also, since she's a gardener for a major university (a university that throws money around like it's nothing) she has scooped us hundreds of $$$ worth of nice plants and trees. We've overhauled the whole yard for close to nothing.

This month, my dad is coming out to help with a reno. We are taking down a wall and doubling the size of the kitchen.

The one thing I find with owning a home is there is always something to do. Never have I had a day where I am just sitting on the couch wondering what I could do with my time. There is ALWAYS something to do to a house.

How easy is the fence building thing? I've purchased the cedar fence boards, bought some 4x4x8 fence posts and some 2x4's and stained all of them. Now I'm at the stage where I have to dig holes for the fence posts. Did you cement them in, or just bury them? Did you build yours from scratch, or was it a pre-made dealy?

owning a home to me is like believing in Santa Claus or actually paying off my student loans. I'd like to believe it's possible but it won't happen.

Why is this thread so damn wide? Is someone living in a doublewide trailer or something?

barker - cement in the posts...trust me