The High Cost of Homeownership

Also if you are going to buy a house like this, then in the next line say "Paid a Handyman" - you have already lost (From the standpoint of frugality).

If you want a fixer upper have some fun and learn to do things right yourself. Your projects take longer but they are very fulfilling. 90% of the tiny-home movement innovations are all from people who are just hacking their living spaces.

A home is not an investment that will make you money. You will (almost) never get $'s out of it that you put in with _time_ and effort. What you will get back is the joy of a space that is purely you- doing work on you home can be like tending a zen garden... hell you can make a zen garden. Its your creative space.

The same argument goes for cars- I just bought a new car and have spent the past week going through the service manual because I want to know it as much as I care to dig. I like to work on my own vehicles. It seems like people generally either fear working on things themselves or just don't take pleasure in physical problem solving.

> But that savings of $600 per month is more than outweighed by the huge repair costs we've incurred. It'll take ten to fifteen years to make up the difference, to break even with the condo expenses.

Unlikely to ever break even. The opportunity cost of the $100,000 they spent is enormous. They’ll never break even on that by saving $600/month.

Yeah, if you own a house, you pay for maintenance. If you rent, your rent pays the landlord for his cost of maintenance, and if you're lucky, the landlord will actually do some. You pay either way.

Honestly, that house was a total loss from the start.

You only need to watch youtube videos of abandoned houses to see clearly that houses aren't investments.