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xtitsxlast Wednesday, 10 September, was my five-year Housiversary.
i closed on The House That I Own on 10 September 2020, and i've been living here ever since.
it is the longest that i've ever lived anywhere since i left my Parents' house.
i used to be a roaming soul, i would live some place for six months, a year, maybe two, and then want to move on, but, after five years, i am still very happy to be living in my house.
and i guess a big part of the calculus is that i own my house.
the PSE and i get to invest so much time and effort and money and love into this house, pride of ownership, and that is worth a lot.
when i first bought The House That I Own i figured i would live in it for a few years until i got sick of working for a living, then sell it, hopefully for a profit.
but, i didn't consider how attached you get to a House that is yours, how it becomes a part if your family that you don't want to leave behind.
there may well come a time when the PSE and Dax and i want to go traveling, go live in several other parts of the world, but the plan will be to keep the house, and whenever we come back to the States, to live in The House that I Own.
because that is our home.
here are some statistics:
i bought The House That I Own in September 2020 for $380,000.
they were asking $389,900 and i Jewed them out of $9,900
i paid $24,000 in cash up front, and i took out a loan of $361,000 to cover the rest, plus closing costs.
my loan rate was 2.625%, which was historically low, nobody has a better rate, but despite that, i am still getting raped up the asshole with interest.
over the life of the loan, paying minimum principal every month, after thirty years, the Mortgage Company will have extracted $160,984.72 from me. that makes me ill.
i have spent the past five years regularly making mortgage payments well in excess of what was actually due.
my monthly mortgage due has varied between $1,942.56 and $1,706.64 over the past five years, [but normally closer to the $1,700 number then $1,900,] an i have always paid at least $2,000 every month.
i have always paid at least $150 in additional mortgage principal every month, most months closer to an additional $250 per month.
but yet, despite that regular over-payment, after five years of mortgage payments my loan is only down to $310,556.96.
after five years of regular over-payments, i have given my Mortgage Company $112,630.13, but i only have a $50,443.04 reduction in my principal owed to show for it.
the rest went to property tax and homeowners insurance, and the lion's share went to the fucking Mortgage Company in interest.
2.625% doesn't sound like much, but somehow to these criminals, it works out to more then half.
when i bought The House That I Own, it was in need of some care.
it wasn't a shambles, but there were things that it needed, mostly aesthetic.
what's the point of living in a House if you're not going to add your own personal touch to it.
and the PSE and i have been adding our personal touches pretty much non-stop since we moved in.
this past year, we spent $56,187.15 on five major home renovation projects.
well, technically, we spent $77,910.97, but, we got back $21,723.82 from homeowners insurance, thank fucking goodness.
still, $56,187.15 is a lot of out-of-pocket expenses for just one year of home improvements.
in September, the PSE started renovating my Home Office.
she redesigned my closet, she smoothed and painted the walls, she built a floor-to-ceiling bookcase.
i only wrote down ~$2,000 in supplies for that, though, it was likely more, and that number did not factor in the PSE's labor.
in April, my Mother moved in to the Basement Apartment, which necessitated some repairs.
we enlarged the windows in the basement bedroom and kitchen in the hopes that it would bring in more sunlight, and we cut back a wall in the kitchen to try to disperse what light there is around better.
the windows were $14,300 and the wall removal was another $4,300.
the project worked, but only just barely.
there is more light in the bedroom and the kitchen then there once was, but the result was not anywhere close to being worth the expense.
soon after my Mother moved in, in June, my entire sewer line from the basement, through the front yard and out into the street needed to be replaced.
it was the old cast iron plumbing that was installed when the house was built back in 1952 and it had rotted through after 73 years.
so, the plumbers had to come and rip up our basement, and rip up our front lawn, but before they did that, they had to bring in some specialists to rip up the tile because it was made of asbestos [everybody assumed,] and that's a whole big thing.
to rip up the asbestos tile was $7,480.
then, to dig up the old pipes through the basement and the lawn and then replace them with PVC Pipe cost $39,295.90, but then we got reimbursed $21,723.82 from the Insurance Company, which brought the total to replace the sewer pipes down to $17,572.08
after the Sewer People dug up the basement, we had to redo the flooring, because they just left it with a concrete floor.
that tied into a larger remodel of the basement kitchen that we planned to do anyway, on account of how ugly the basement kitchen was originally.
we bought new cabinets, new counter tops [including installation,] a new stove, a new refrigerator, a new sink and faucet, tile for a backslash, luxury vinyl flooring and installation, all for $9,785.07.
[more about that in some post next week. maybe the week after.]
the PSE also spent a lot of time and money on landscaping in the front and back yards.
i don't have good figured on how much she spent over the past year, but she guesses $750 roughly.
so, all of the above works out to $56,187.15 in out-of-pocket home improvement costs for the past year, September 2024 to September 2025.
since we moved into the House in September 2020, all the way up to this post [including the $56,187.15] we have invested a total $159,520.92 into The House That I Own.
i'm not going to go back and detail all of those expenses because that'll be a whole big thing.
that is fucking nuts!
but, then, we made some money on The House That I Own, too.
my Mother moved into the basement apartment back in April, and she insisted on paying rent.
i didn't ask her to pay rent, and i'm a little reluctant to accept it because what kind of a son charges their Mother rent!?!, but she insisted, and i think it makes her feel like she's not a burden, like she is pulling her weight with the family.
so, sure, Ma! i'll take your money if you want.
my Mother paid $1,220 in rent for May, June, July and August 2025.
then starting in September, she paid $1,338.73, which is really just the amount of rents we were able to extract from renting the Rental House out to somebody.
but, in theory, that is my Mother's money that she is using to now pay her room and board, so i guess we'll count it as House rents earned.
that's $6,218.73 in rents that The House That I Own generated in the past year.
and back in 2021 and 2022, we had a guy from work renting out the basement.
he paid $1,000 per month, plus a third of Utilities.
he rented the basement for 13 months, which is $13,000.
which is total rental income earnings over the past five years of $19,218.73.
so, what does all of that math mean?
over the past five years, i have invested:
-$24,000 in up-front costs.
-$112,630.13 in mortgage payments, principle, interest and escrow.
-$159,520.92 in house repair and improvement expenses.
that's $296,151.05.
then, i have recouped $19,218.73 in rents.
which brings my total cash expenditures on The House That I Own down to $276,932.32 over the past five years.
and for all that, i still owe another $310,556.96 on my mortgage.
if i never spend another dime on home renovations, i'll be into my house $587,489.28 by the time my mortgage is paid off in 2050.
according to the internet, presently, my House is worth between $436,800 [Realtor Dot Com,] $468,100 [Zillow,] and $501,598 [Redfin.]
meaning that even if i sold my House tomorrow and got ten percent over the highest estimate, i would still be in the fucking red on my house.
despite all of the above depressing arithmetic on home ownership, i am still very, very happpy to be a home owner.
the alternatives are to rent, like a fucking asshole, or to be a homeless person, but, i can't do that as a father.
it's cool to hobo around in your early twenties. when you're in your mid-forties, with toddler and an elderly Mother to care for, that would be unacceptable.
so, i will keep feeding The House That I Own money and trying to keep it happy, and it will be mine, and that is worth a lot.
here's to five good years together, House!
let's go another fifty!
//[get excited!]
