Homes
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Do You Know Your Neighbors?
A funny thing happened to me as I set off on my way to FinCon last week. As I got into my Uber, the driver said, “We don’t know each other, but I actually live right over here.” By “right over here,” he literally meant two doors down. After making this realization, we chatted a…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Adding Security Cameras to Our House
When we moved into our house, one of our first annoyances were multiple visits from ADP representatives trying to sell us a security system. At the time, and with each of their three or four visits, I told them that we weren’t very concerned and that such a system wasn’t really a priority for us.…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Comparing Our Mortgage to Rental Options
When we decided to buy a house, a huge consideration was how much we’d be spending on a monthly basis. Sure enough, once you factor in our mortgage (complete with 7.999% interest), insurance, and property tax, our monthly payments were an increase from what we were paying for our apartment, coming in at around $1,500.…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Why a Pole Pruner is Our New Favorite Outdoor Tool
A few months ago, we called a tree guy out to come take a look in our yard and let us know what work he’d recommend we do. As I recalled in a previous post, this interaction left me with some intriguing insight and didn’t cost me anything, as he didn’t see a need for…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Navigating Our First Serious Power Outage
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…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Next Evolution of Our Basement
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…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The Truth About Managing Risk as a Homeowner
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…
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Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Announcing My New (and Free) Homebuyer’s Guide
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…
