Hard Work Owning a Home

This guest post from Lewis Beck

Owning a home is a lot more work than I ever thought it would be. I figured I’d find the perfect place (in my price range, of course!) and move right in, never to worry about anything like signing up for utilities or whether or not I had rodents in the backyard. As it turns out you can’t just call the maintenance company every time your lightbulbs go out when YOU own the house. I guess I was naïve and I was young when I bought this place so I try to go easy on myself but geez! You’d think I would have known I had to actually switch my TXU Energy account from the condo to here (and open all the emails they sent me) or my power was going to get turned off. You’d think I would know that I had to have homeowner’s insurance before I showed up to closing and you’d THINK I would know that if a tree falls on my neighbor’s house from my yard, it’s my problem. But nope – these are all things it’s taken me this first year of living here to figure out and it’s been a long road. I feel like someone needs to write a book, and they probably already have, about exactly what it takes to be a first-time homeowner. I mean, I had my parents and a couple of friends who had bought homes but you don’t know the questions to ask if you’ve never even thought of the question, catch my drift? My real estate agent was unfortunately kind of checked out of the whole deal so it took me a long time to even find this place. Some people say their agents helped them with all the little details that I forgot but it seemed like all my agent wanted to do was unlock the doors and cash her check! Next time around I’ll know better, but I’m still learning.