{"id":424,"date":"2006-10-30T10:36:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-30T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=424"},"modified":"2006-10-30T10:36:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-30T17:36:00","slug":"beware-the-hidden-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware the Hidden Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a bit of balance for you after that rental horror story.  Astoundingly, today&#8217;s &#8220;home buying isn&#8217;t always a walk in the park&#8221; story comes to you <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/realestate\/2003326764_hiddencosts29.html\" title=\"Everywhere you look, there are hidden costs in buying a home\">courtesy of the Seattle Times<\/a> (but not E. Rhodes of course).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Katherine and Robert McCartney thought they&#8217;d found the perfect first home in a 1,400-square-foot 1950s rambler in Boise, Idaho, a few years back. They thought they were getting a deal.<\/p>\n<p>They actually were getting in way over their heads.<\/p>\n<p>A few months after they bought the house, the couple had to move to Washington for work. But before they put the house on the market again, they spent thousands of dollars on a new roof, garbage disposal, paint job, window screens and sand for the oil furnace.<br \/>&#8230;<br \/>In the process of buying and reselling quickly, they discovered one of the cardinal rules of homeownership: That cool condo or cozy craftsman likely will cost thousands more than you paid for it, most notably for maintenance and repairs, furniture and fixtures \u2014 expenses that buyers should plan on but don&#8217;t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which is one of the many reasons that <b>stretching your budget to buy a home is never a good idea<\/b>.  You never know what will come up, and you are pretty much guaranteed that there will be <i>something<\/i> that you didn&#8217;t expect.  The &#8220;rule&#8221; that you shouldn&#8217;t spend more than 30% of your gross income on housing wasn&#8217;t just pulled out of thin air.  If you don&#8217;t leave a financial buffer in your budget, you&#8217;re setting yourself up for problems down the road.<\/p>\n<p>Home ownership is great, and I&#8217;m all for people buying houses&mdash;as long as they can actually <i>afford<\/i> to.  There&#8217;s more to &#8220;affording&#8221; a house than the simple [INCOME] <b>&gt;<\/b> [MONTHLY PAYMENT] equation.<\/p>\n<p>(<i>Heather Rae Darval, <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/realestate\/2003326764_hiddencosts29.html\" title=\"Everywhere you look, there are hidden costs in buying a home\">Seattle Times<\/a>, 10.28.2006<\/i>)<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">\n<div style=\"margin: 0 auto; padding: 2px; font-size: 12px; width: 150px; text-align: center; border: 1px dashed #4386ce; background-color: #D5E2F1;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/xclick\/business=paypal%40timandjeni.com&#038;no_note=1&#038;tax=0&#038;currency_code=USD&#038;lc=US&#038;item_name=Seattle%20Bubble%20Donation\" title=\"Seattle Bubble Tip Jar\">Seattle Bubble Tip Jar<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a bit of balance for you after that rental horror story. Astoundingly, today&#8217;s &#8220;home buying isn&#8217;t always a walk in the park&#8221; story comes to you courtesy of the Seattle Times (but not E. Rhodes of course). Katherine and Robert McCartney thought they&#8217;d found the perfect first home in a 1,400-square-foot 1950s rambler in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[3],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-rhodes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Beware the Hidden Costs \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Beware the Hidden Costs \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s a bit of balance for you after that rental horror story. Astoundingly, today&#8217;s &#8220;home buying isn&#8217;t always a walk in the park&#8221; story comes to you courtesy of the Seattle Times (but not E. Rhodes of course). Katherine and Robert McCartney thought they&#8217;d found the perfect first home in a 1,400-square-foot 1950s rambler in...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@The_Tim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SeattleBubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Tim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/\",\"name\":\"Beware the Hidden Costs \u2022 Seattle Bubble\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2006-10-30T17:36:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7de7c0dd14bee1a2c67f7ce86bc4505f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/30\/beware-the-hidden-costs\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Beware the Hidden Costs\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Seattle Bubble\",\"description\":\"local\u00a0real\u00a0estate\u00a0news, statistics,\u00a0and\u00a0commentary without\u00a0the\u00a0sales\u00a0spin.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7de7c0dd14bee1a2c67f7ce86bc4505f\",\"name\":\"The Tim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/37756956c11dcc50d2559761ffa5ee70\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19e5770990a1681615608091b2de571b10c3e03bbac7d07bb2ae15297ee72fbc?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19e5770990a1681615608091b2de571b10c3e03bbac7d07bb2ae15297ee72fbc?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Tim\"},\"description\":\"Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. 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