Category: Homes

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Navigating Our First Serious Power Outage

by Kyle BurbankJul 9, 2025

Last weekend, following another brief but powerful windstorm, we were left without power. Although we've had our power go out for a couple of hours here and there since moving to our house, this was the first time that we and a large section of our neighbors were left sans electricity for several hours. And while we were fortunate to have power back after about 15 hours, others in our...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Next Evolution of Our Basement

by Kyle BurbankMay 28, 2025

Since we moved into our house about 18 months ago, it seems as though our relationship with our finished basement continues to evolve. To catch you up, the initial intent for this space was a family room/guest room — but the sofa bed's inability to fit down the stairs scrapped that plan. And while it did eventually get used as a guest bedroom with the help of an air mattress,...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Truth About Managing Risk as a Homeowner

by Kyle BurbankApr 30, 2025

Ever since we first toured the home that we'd go on to make our own, there was something literally looming over the house that worried me a bit: a giant tree in the backyard. Specifically, as I've learned, it's a silver maple tree — and, while it does provide some great shade, watching the branches blow in the wind does lead to some anxiety. That's why, at long last, we...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Announcing My New (and Free) Homebuyer's Guide

by Kyle BurbankApr 16, 2025

For the past 18 months, I've been writing about my experience 1) buying a home and then 2) discovering everything that being a homeowner entails. Along the way, I've covered some topics that I'd never heard anyone else really talk about and have developed a few tips that I think others could learn from. That's why I've now compiled the highlights of my experience into a new guide So, You...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The New Addition to Our Basement

by Kyle BurbankApr 2, 2025

Last month, I shared how we had hosted our first overnight guest — which also meant finally making use of our finished basement. Well, as we continue to look for ways to utilize the space (after our initial plan of putting our couch down there was scuttled), we recently started the process of turning it into a gym. Okay, "gym" is a bit generous as we really only intend to...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: My Most Surprising Revelation From Observing My Neighbors

by Kyle BurbankMar 19, 2025

In past installments of this series, I've discussed how game-changing having an attached garage has been. On a basic level, coming from an apartment complex, it's nice not to have anyone complain about where we park for any reason—or having to move our car last minute for some event or maintenance. It's also great not having to worry about running from our car to the house during heavy rain or...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Hosting Our First Guest in the House

by Kyle BurbankMar 5, 2025

After more than a year in our new home, we finally hosted our first guest last month. While the ability to have overnight guests was a partial factor in why we elected to upgrade to owning a home versus renting a one-bedroom apartment, the amount of time that it took to actually have someone over is more a testament to just how few people we know. In any case, while...

Homes

Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Average Annual Homeowner Expenses vs. Mine

by Kyle BurbankFeb 12, 2025

In one of my daily searches for financial news recently, I came across a report from the site Real Estate Witch (which is owned by Clever Real Estate) detailing how much the average American homeowner spends on their house — not even including their mortgage. What it found was, heading into 2025, the average per year is a whopping $24,529. That figure is up significantly from the $17,958 annual average...