Owning your own home is something that a great many people aspire to yet it is not without its costs. Going into buying a property means that you need to have your eyes wide open about what those costs actually are. A good friend of mine works for Accelerate Mortgage and he often discusses the surprise of so many people when they do discover the overall cost of living in their own place. When budgeting for a mortgage for example, it is important that you have a clear image what you can actually afford each month, and that is why you need to understand all the costs.
Utilities
Each month you are going to have to pay for gas, electric and water at the very minimum, and this is absolutely critical payments to make. It may be slightly tricky to calculate the cost of this per month because most bills of this type are charged by the quarter rather than by the month. There is no budging on these bills, and they of course can fluctuate based on your usage.
Phone and Internet
Another monthly cost you will have to cover is your home phone and internet. Even if you have no use for the phone itself you will still have an active line to pay for as this is of course how you get internet. There is a range of packages which you can look to buy here depending on how fast you want the internet to be and the amount of use you will get from it.
Repairs
Something which you can never quite predict is when you are going to need to carry out repairs on or inside the property. For this reason you cannot calculate a set amount per month but it is always a great idea to have at least a few hundred dollars set to one side so that you can afford to fix things as and when they do go wrong. The only real insight which you can get here is to see whether or not you have an old or a new property, as an older property will need more by way of modernizing and repairs. Factor in at least $50 per month to set to one side in order to avoid any issues.
Mortgage
And of course the final thing to consider here is your mortgage, likely to be the biggest payment which you make on a monthly basis. This should constitute between 30 and 40 percent of your income, leaving the rest for monthly bills and spends. Naturally if it is possible the mortgage will only take up 25% of your income, and that is really what you should be aiming towards. If you can do this then you will be in a much stronger position financially.
These are the main costs which you will have to factor in when it comes to owning your own house.
