Average annual maintenance cost for your home.
Trinitys_Revenge
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So you buy an house in reasonable condition with no structural damage. To maintain the house value at the purchase price, how much would you need to spend a year (based over a 25 year mortgage period)? Based on my own experience and anecdotal evidence I'm saying 1% a year? Would anyone disagree?
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You have to allow that some non planned for emergencies may crop up, ie, roof lets in rain water, boiler conks out & these can cost perhaps £3k-4k each to sort out.
Things like getting guttering cleared, fences treated & kept in good repair chimney being swept, annual gas service etc. can often be overlooked when working out cost of maintenance on a property.
I should mention that there's only one of me, don't confuse me with others of the same name.
The Great Declutter Challenge - £876
I think that's right also do you consider updating a perfectly good but out of fashion bathroom maintenance.
I have known some people spend £15K in the first 3-4 years of buying their house, on things that needed doing to get the property up to scratch, and maintain its value. (Including a person I know whose boiler packed up within a month of them buying the property, costing 3 grand.)
And I have known others who are continually having to spend on the maintenance of the property. It's like it never stops.
Then I've known a few others who have gone 3-5 years and spent less than a grand on maintenance in that time. The first 2 scenarios are more likely though, as many people usually sell when lots of major maintenance needs doing.
So it's sensible to assume that repairs and maintenance are probably more than likely to cost much more than you think it's going to, as things always come up when you're least expecting it, and it always costs more.
Really really hard question to answer sorry. As someone said above, it depends on the condition of the property to start with. I would have 10 grand in the bank going spare if I were you though.
You're not singing anymore........ You're not singing any-more!
If you don't know the right traders then costs will be high, if you are not prepared to so much as pick up a screw driver or paint brush, cost will be very high
If you are prepared to do a fair bit of diy, you're costs can be less than a couple of hundred £ a year on most properties.
That's with me having owned my starter house for many years and now recently having moved to a house I anticipate keeping.
That's because, when I bought the starter house, it had suffered a lot of neglect by previous owners (no proper kitchen yet, no doubleglazing yet, needed rewiring, etc) and I had to set to and put matters right to a certain extent (not fully...bearing in mind it WAS only a "starter" after all). Hence I had to spend a lot more than I would have on just maintaining it.
With my current house, I'm now throwing loads of money at it doing work that previous owners had neglected to do on the one hand and remedying "old person style" taste on the other hand. It will be some time before the house is finished and then it will only need maintenance to keep it going.
I think this is the case with a lot of houses in fact and hence impossible to tell what "maintenance" costs alone would be.
The only way someone could answer you, possibly, is if they had bought a brand new house and hence only had to do "maintenance" work on it from there on in. Even then, some of those new home owners would have spent some money unnecessarily just because they fancied changing some bits and bobs in the house (eg redecorating a perfectly decorated house, just because they didn't like the colour of the walls personally).
Basically, I think you've asked an "How long is a piece of string?" question there.
Personally, once I've finished my current house off, then I'll hazard a guess at maybe an average of £500 pa would do for "maintenance"???
Yes, we are choosing to have an extension done, but we would have to pull down and rebuild the sagging wall onto the road anyway. And it seems the garage roof is asbestos. And the conservatory leaks badly (neither we, nor the surveyor visited on wet days it seems!).
But I'll always be budgeting £200 for septic tank and chimney sweeping (although that may go up if we open up more of the fireplaces).
Gutter clearing about £20 a year.
Monthly window cleaning will come to about £250.
That's easily £500 per year before we get onto keeping external paintwork in good condition etc etc.
What about fuel for the lawnmower and hedgetrimmer too. Probably about £15 to £20. Plus outlay for said tools. We're young and able enough to not have to have someone in to do those jobs.
Currently having slates replaced occasionally too. And some repointing to be done.
*sigh* Endless list
No lawnmower fuel, as no lawn.
No septic tank or chimneys to be dealt with.
I'll do my own windowcleaning/guttercleaning.
Exterior paintwork = walls only (as everything is upvc) and I'll be able to do it myself (as its single storey, being a bungalow).
There'll be an annual service of the central heating system and possibly odd repairs to that from time to time. I might need to swop the (new) boiler once or twice over rest of my life.
I might need to hire someone to trim trees and bushes occasionally.
The kitchen and bathroom will probably need redecorating every few years (harder wear and tear on the d!cor in those rooms). The rest of the rooms should remain looking decent and not actually "need" redecorating (no pets, no smoking, no open fires), so that would just be down to whether I "wanted" to redecorate.
The floorcoverings (well...I'm retirement age and am just in process of swopping every one in the house and using reasonable quality ones, so hopefully won't ever have to renew them).
Hopefully, that will be that and there would only be something very small, eg changing a tap washer or something, that would ever need doing apart from the above.
Move to a listed Georgian farm, and the costs can only increase further, partly as it's almost bound to be listed. Make that a Grade I listed Medieval property in Lavenham, and the costs of simple maintenance become eye-watering.
There is one Golden Rule. Keep the maintenance up, keep the property in good order and you not only protect your investment, you reduce the costs of future repair. Let the gutters block and damp will damage the roof timbers and walls. Let the painted woodwork lapse and you'll be replacing windows and doors.
There's another good bit of advice that's probably gold-plated at least. If you find a good workman, try & keep him, and get him to recommend colleagues he'd be happy to use himself.
What we have not done is replace perfectly serviceable kitchens and bathrooms with newer ones just because of fashion...
Or completely redecorate throughout because we were bored of the decor.
When you hear about people spending 1% a year (which is daft) that's usually where they go wrong.
In our previous house, a victorian detached, we spent around 20K in 20 years. But that did include some significant roof works, which is of course maintenance, and also a new kitchen/bathroom, which aren't really 'maintenance'.
If it had been a newbuild you could have cut that figure in half....
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