4 Unexpected Expenses When Moving Into A New Home

You’ve prepared yourself mentally for the hit to your wallet that occurs when you buy a new home. Closing costs, home inspections and even storage fees for your stuff while you wait to move are all accounted for and expected.

Yet, as a first time buyer, there are going to be some that you had not considered and maybe nobody told you about. It’s important to understand some of the hidden expenses to owning your first home so you can budget for these things. 

It’s very easy to end up house poor when you end up spending more than what you had planned to before you signed on the dotted line.

In this article, I will help you prepare for when you buy your first house by giving you some hints on things you should be aware of. 

1 - Pest Control

There’s nothing worse than moving into your new home only to find out that you have a pest infestation. Whether it is mice, cockroaches or termites, your quality of life is severely impacted by having this problem.

Getting an exterminator is the way to go to get rid of the problem and is not usually too expensive, it’s just that you hadn’t planned on the expense. Pest control Tampa, or wherever your new home is, can give you a quote before they come and do the work so you won’t have surprises.

One thing to make sure you do when you move in if you don’t have pests is to try to keep it that way. Make sure to seal any holes around the perimeter of your house to prevent any unwanted guests from entering from the outside. A properly sealed house is an inexpensive way to prevent a bill coming later. 

2 - Needs a deep cleaning

When you did your walk through, the house looked clean and smelled nice. Now that you have moved in you can see that they only did enough to make the house presentable. It turns out that it actually smells funny and there are lots of areas that need to be cleaned much better.

In many cases, you will need to hire a professional cleaning crew to make sure it is done right the first time. That way you can keep up with the cleaning after when working from a clean slate. 

3 - HVAC doesn’t work well

Maybe you bought your house in the winter so you didn’t get to check if the central air conditioning was actually working. Then the summer hits and you realize that you have no A/C. Well, it could just need to be recharged, in which case it won’t cost much.

Or, it could be not working. Maybe a compressor is not working, or something got burnt out in the internal circuitry. Whatever the cause, you could be looking at quite a bill that comes when you least expect it.

Make sure to go over the HVAC when you are making the offer. Have it inspected before you commit to the house when you are having the other inspections done. It will cost you some money to have it checked, but it could save you money. If there are problems where it needs to be repaired or replaced, then you can have that deducted from the asking price. 

4 - Insurance

It’s no secret that you will have to get an insurance policy for your home. That should be no surprise. \\Where the shock comes in is when you go to get a policy and find that to properly cover your house, the policy costs far more than you expected. It could be that the neighborhood is now considered dangerous if there were break ins reported and the insurance companies have raised premiums for that area. 

What gets really expensive is when the city or state does a survey and then categorizes your area as a flood zone when previously it was not. This can raise your insurance costs substantially. In fact, some insurance companies won’t offer flood insurance in these cases.

Make sure to do your research on the area before you make an offer on the home to see what the statistics are so you can get an accurate quote. You may get lucky and the insurance rates are the same as what the previous owner was paying. 

Conclusion

These hidden expenses don’t need to be a surprise if you are diligent beforehand. You just need to know what to look for. When you have this information in your back pocket, you can avoid some costly oversights.