Don’t Overspend to Personalize
You’ve just handed over a large portion of your life savings for a down payment, closing costs, and moving expenses. Money is tight for most first-time homeowners. Not only are their savings depleted, but their monthly expenses are also often higher as well, thanks to the new costs that come with homeownership, such as water and trash bills and extra insurance.
Everyone wants to personalise a new home and upgrade what may have been temporary apartment furniture for something nicer, but don’t go on a massive spending spree to improve everything all at once. Just as crucial as getting your first home is staying in it, and as nice as solid maple kitchen cabinets might be, they aren’t worth jeopardizing your new status as a homeowner.
Give yourself time to adjust to homeownership’s expenses and rebuild your savings. The cabinets will still be waiting for you when you can more comfortably afford them.
Don’t Ignore Important Maintenance
One of the new expenses that accompany homeownership is making repairs. There’s no landlord to call if your roof is leaking or your toilet is clogged. To look at the positive side, there’s also no rent increase notice taped to your door on a random Friday afternoon.
While you should exercise restraint in purchasing the nonessentials, you shouldn’t neglect any problem that puts you in danger or could worsen over time. Delay can turn a relatively small problem into a much larger and costlier one. One way to protect yourself against potential maintenance issues is to have a potential home inspected before buying it.
Get Properly Insured
Your mortgage lender requires you not only to purchase homeowners insurance but also to purchase enough to fully replace the property in the event of a total loss. But that’s not the only insurance coverage you need as a homeowner.
If you share your home with anyone who relies on your income to pay the mortgage, you’ll need life insurance with that person named as a beneficiary so that they won’t lose the house if you die unexpectedly.
Similarly, you’ll want to have disability-income insurance to replace your income if you become so disabled that you can’t work.
Also, once you own a home, you have more to lose in the event of a lawsuit, so you’ll want to make sure you have excellent car insurance coverage. If you are self-employed as a sole proprietor, you may want to consider forming a corporation, which will give you significant legal protection of your assets.
You may also want to purchase an umbrella policy that picks up where your other policies leave off. If you are found at fault in a car accident with a judgement of $1 million against you and your car insurance only covers the first $250,000, an umbrella policy can pick up the rest of the slack. These policies are usually issued in units of $1 million.
