“Buy a house as soon as you can. It’s always a good investment.” Most of us have heard that little piece of wisdom many times. The problem is, though, that it’s not always true. Your home can be an asset, a wise investment, but it can also be a liability. It just depends. To make sure your home works for you financially and not against you, you need to understand the financial implications of your Central Florida home.
Maintenance Costs
One of the important financial implications of your Central Florida home is the amount of money you’ll have to sink into maintenance, as well as repairs and upgrades. Depending on the home’s condition, it could be very little or a huge amount. And don’t forget that in calculating those costs you also have to factor in your time.
Even if your home is in fairly good shape and doesn’t need any painting or siding replacement or new appliances, there still may be costs. If, for example, your windows are single pane and the attic insulation isn’t sufficient, you will have to replace windows and add insulation to keep from paying a ton of money on utility bills. So you need to sit down and put pencil to paper in order to determine whether your home is an asset or liability when it comes to maintenance costs. If you find that it’s a liability, you will need to contact a good agent. Discover more by calling (804) 924-9093.
Mortgage Payments
Many people don’t pay that much attention to mortgage payments, instead just struggling through and paying them every month. But this is certainly one of the important financial implications of your Central Florida home.
If two incomes are absolutely essential to make mortgage payments, they may be too high and your home a financial liability. Experts agree that your housing costs should be no more than 30% of one person’s income. After all, you still have kids’ college tuition, your retirement, and a host of other things to save for.
How Long You’ll Stay
A very important one of the financial implications of your home is how long you intend to live there. This can make it either an asset or a liability.
Generally speaking, if you don’t intend to stay long enough to build enough equity and realize enough appreciation to cover your down payment and closing costs, then you probably shouldn’t buy. Also, if you’ll wind up selling soon, you may have to sell during a downturn in the unpredictable real estate market. So if you don’t intend to stay fora minimum of, say, five years, your home could easily become a liability rather than an asset.
Missed Opportunities
One of the often overlooked financial implications of your Central Florida home is the fact that owning that home could cause you to miss valuable opportunities. Today, advancement in many careers (for example, in the tech industry) requires a good amount of mobility. But if you can’t pack up and move across the country on short notice because you’re tied to a home and mortgage, you may be limiting yourself career-wise. Or if you do sell on short notice, you may not get a decent price, and, again, your home becomes a financial liability.
Get Help With the Financial Implications of Your Central Florida Home
These probably seem like some fairly major life-impacting implications – and that’s because they are. A home can be a great investment, but under certain conditions, it can cost you a significant amount of money.