Owning a House

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Oh yes, one of the hidden costs of home ownership--the nervous breakdown from doing the taxes. We buy the computer program and my husband deals with it. If I were on my own, I would have to hire someone.

I had bad experiences in apartments. I find noizy neighbors very disturbing, and sometimes I want to play the stereo loud. Now a house can be a lot of work, and I just moved and its very stressful. My house has been chosen for privacy. In my old house I had problems with my nosy and controlling neighbors. The new location is more comfortable in that respect.

If I knew of a housing situation that would be stress-free for me, I would be there--haven't found it yet.

Well I used to own a big house but one thing & another, I impulsively sold it last year. Was hoping to move cross country & did, in fact, go out west & look at houses, etc. But as it turned out I ended up having to return & stay in the same school district as before, for a reason I should have foreseen but did not.

Came back & rented a house in the correct school district for three months. The landlord was a nightmare. I don't want to go into it.... but he was just another bully in my life. [What a @#$% that guy is.] The problem was that when I bought my first house 13 years ago, the prices were much lower. Oh, and plus I had a job then, and hadn't ruined my credit yet .... (married an abusive @#$% ten years ago & by our first anniversary he had maxed out my credit cards, I owed money to the kids' dentist, got our electricity turned off a few times, I found myself emptying "our" savings accounts to eat, even though I still had my job then, but he didn't work, yet loved to spend.... etc. etc. etc.).

The house prices are dropping slowly but I live in a "desirable" area, so there really wasn't anything I could afford. I could not live in the rental house, due to the abusive landlord (not physical abuse) and also the rent was expensive! I was feeling fairly hopeless until I found my current house. It's in the location (school district) that I need it to be, and it was a third of the price of the next cheapest house in the area (80,000 vs. 239,000). It's really small but that's OK. I can be in here & no one is able to bother me, (lol at my low standards). I had a bunch of money to put down on it, due to selling the other house, but had to borrow 30,000 from my parents b/c no one else would loan it to me. And they'd have been smart not to, because I haven't been paying them back as of yet.... Luckily when I sold the other house I had just repaid them 35000 (my estimate of how much I owed them b/c I had already been disabled/ not working for a while, the house was a money pit, and not to mention, I've become much less good with money than before so I end up wasting tons of it). They actually offered to pay my mortgage for me if only I wouldn't sell it, because I guess they could see I was a little "off" in my decision making.... nope, I turned them down. So now we live a mile from the old house, in a quarter of the size house as before (same kids but less stuff if anyone wonders how). It's on a weird shaped lot, most of which is a deep rock ledge (as I suspected, but it was confirmed yesterday, when I had to have a new pump put into the septic system, the guy told me he had turned down the job of building the septic 5 years ago, because the house was built on a big solid rock ledge that goes down to the core of the earth (exaggerating, but it might as well, it's not something you can dig into with a machine). And the little bit of land that isn't on the rock, is clay & sand I think he said, basically the septic system takes up the entire part of the yard that isn't rock & it really has nowhere to drain....he says that sort of soil doesn't absorb water very well. Sweet. You know, $600 later and all that. I told him the check I gave him was bad.... he said he'd wait, until I told him to deposit it. "Oh, Mommy..... um can I 'borrow' another $600 so my check won't bounce...." but I've been avoiding her calls all day b/c every time I talk to her she ends up "loaning" me more money & I'm not happy about it. Please don't get me wrong, I am very grateful, but I used to be a lot more independent than I am now.... it stinks. Plus, even though it isn't my money I still mismanage it badly for some reason, that's been going on a couple years now I guess. So I feel guilty.... and she is confused (as I am) why my life is so expensive when we live very simply, don't make purchases, idk where it's going really, and that's not even my biggest issue right now.

So yes I do own a house, & it's not really adequate (at least by my previous standards), but it's a place to be, and it's mine. I guess I do need a place where I can say who is allowed to come in, and who isn't, and where I can spend some time alone and just be how I am. I don't think I will ever sell a house again, even though I hope to buy a different one when I get more money. But that was dumb. Kinda like when I blew off my college scholarships & mother's offer to support me through college, because I wanted to get married so I did, and that husband (now a distant memory) didn't want me to go away to school. Instead, I soon joined the military, another questionable choice.... at best! But at least when I did that, I was only 17-18 years old. What's my excuse now.

Eep.


ETA, the reason I didn't notice the house was built on a rock was b/c the rock was covered with about a foot of dirt and a lot of myrtle & ground-covery plants. aka once again, I've been taken advantage of....

I never gave any serious thought to buying a house. I wanted to establish a career I felt good about first, and then count the money. I probably would have given it away on various urgent crises anyway.
Then, on my 57th birthday, I was woken up by chainsaws cutting off my power supply, and was completely disoriented for two weeks. Most of my brains thought the clock had turned back several years to when my life was being threatened and I had gone crazy from lack of sleep, with chainsaws as part of the sound environment.
For months, I tried to forestall a repetition, and everything I did just made the situation worse until I was evicted illegally, by use of that specific threat.
The only thing that saved my life was a recent inheritance. I moved into my car and drove to where there were many abandoned farmhouses. After months of shopping, I hit a run of serendipity and was offered a good deal on a house in a small town. It was still over a year before I felt I'd gotten enough sleep even once.
The biggest difference is that I get treated as a full citizen now. There are laws to protect tenants, but they are seldom enforced, and I had been counting on them. I'm handy, so maintenance is no problem. I gave the house a coat of paint, and do enough yard work to keep the neighborhood standard up, and nobody bothers me. It is better to live with no friends than to have what turned out to be fair-weather friends.
I really hate moving. There's over a year's investment in figuring out where to put stuff, and remembering where it is. I maintain a workshop, which is the hardest thing to reorganize.

Getting the house was easy. Adjusting after we moved in was tough because it took me a long time to think of it as my space. Before I got to that point, it felt like sitting on someone else's toilet and I couldn't take a bath because the previous owners couldn't be washed off (showers only). Now the toilet is mine and the bath is free of the old owners! We hire people to do the maintenance and the detail cleaning. I like owning the house a lot more than renting because there's no doubt in my mind that I belong there.

Good question. In my case, it was mostly my wife, who was a terrific "nester". Without her, I probably would have been content to continue living in cabins or a travel trailer, like I do now.

I remember being terribly apprehensive about the mortgage payments ... can we afford them? What if we lose our jobs? Etc, etc. None of those fears materialized, and everything was fine. That was quite a number of years ago, however. Things may be different now. I'm not sure.

It can be an agonizing decision. But sometimes the cards ain't worth a dime if you don't lay 'em down.

It may not be a good idea to get over the hurdle for an aspie.

I do own a house, and it's like a millstone. There are constantly things going wrong with it, there are all sorts of legal requirements, all sorts of things to keep up with. Most of them involve talking to people - neurotypical people, who don't mean what they say, don't keep appointments, forget or ignore your agreement to put in copper pipe in favor of putting in plastic tubing, etc. etc.

Now, a condominium, that's a different story. When I owned a condominium, it was great. I made one call the the building management when something was wrong, they fixed it, they gave me a bill if it wasn't included in the condo fee, and all I had to do was pay it. They worried about whether the roof was due for replacement, making sure the heating system was ready for winter and the air conditioning for summer, legal requirements, insurance, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, all the condos in this area are on the river and cost twice as much per square foot, so I'm stuck with a house.

I had found a beautiful farm that I could barely afford. I'm glad I didn't stretch, expecting to share it with others, as I'm still a rare newcomer here. Another guy showed up who had been wanting that place for years, and I let him have it.

Then I hit a string of coincidences to find an unfashionably old place in the only decent-sized town in the area. It was so cheap I figured I could just try out small-town life and move on if I didn't like it. It worked out well, since it is easy for my few friends to drop in to chat when they come to do their shopping.

One bit of sage advice is to consider your neighborhood, and even your neighbors more than the real estate. if you have any shelter, you can add to it. This place is big enough (1,000 people) that new faces are not a threat, although in a smaller place, they would be more curious and forthcoming. Having very little in common with the natives, I'm glad to be let alone, with just friendly waves from most folks.

I made one funny mistake. My neighbors are all retired farmers with great kitchen gardens. I had never planted a seed, so the 1st time I was standing around with 3 of them on the back alley, I asked for advice. If I'd asked them individually, it would have been fine, but they all drifted off, rather than air their different opinions on how best to do things.