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How Much You Should Spend on Home Maintenance

Knowing how much you should spend on home maintenance each year is hard to figure out and may be preventing you from buying your first home. The types of costs you'll incur depend on the house you buy and its location. The one certainty is that you should start saving now. Read on to figure out how much to start setting aside based on the home you own.

The Age of Your House

Consider several factors when budgeting for home repairs. If you've purchased a new home, your house likely won't require as much maintenance for a few years. Homes built 20 or more years ago are likely to require more maintenance, including replacing and keeping your windows clean. Further, depending on your home's location, weather can cause additional strain over time, so you may need to budget for more repairs.

The One-Percent Rule

An easy way to budget for home repairs is to follow the one-percent rule. Set aside one percent of your home's purchase price each year to cover maintenance costs. For instance, if you paid $200,000 for your home, you would set aside $2,000 each year. This plan is not foolproof. If you bought your home for a good deal during a buyer's market, your home could require more repairs than you've budgeted for.

The Square-Foot Rule

Easy to calculate, you can also budget for home maintenance by saving one dollar for every square foot of your home. This pricing method is more consistent than pricing it by how much you paid because the rate relies on the objective size of your home. Unfortunately, it does not consider inflation for the area where you live, so make sure you also budget for increased taxes and labor costs if you live in or near a city.

The Mix and Match Method

Since there is no infallible rule for how much you should spend on home maintenance, you can combine both methods to get an idea for a budget. Average your results from the square-foot rule and the one-percent rule to arrive at a budget that works for you. You should also increase your savings by 10 percent for each risk factor that affects your home, such as weather and age.

Holding on to savings is easier in theory than practice. Once you know how much you should spend on home maintenance, you'll know what to aim for and be more prepared for an emergency. If you are having trouble securing funds for home repairs, consider taking out a home equity loan, borrowing money from friends or family, or applying for funds through a home repair program through your local government for low-income individuals.

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Center Stage: Tips for Staging Your Home on a Budget

Between buying a new home and transporting yourself and your belongings to it, moving can be an expensive process. One often underrecognized cost of moving occurs before one's original house has even been sold, and that's staging the house. Homeowners often spend hundreds of dollars making a home appealing to potential buyers. To ease the financial burden of moving, here are several tips for staging your home on a budget.

Downsize Instead of Storing

The goal of staging a home is to create a blank canvas that potential buyers can imagine their own lives painted upon. To accomplish this, homeowners should depersonalize the home as much as possible, removing items that are specific to their family and eliminating clutter. This is where homeowners often incur their first costs as they rush to put as many older things in storage as possible.

To cut costs, focus on downsizing rather than storing items. Look for items that you can sell, donate, or give away. For remaining items, look for alternative places to store them, such as a friend or relative's house. This will also reduce the cost of moving your belongings when it is time to go to the new house.

DIY What You Can

There are times when homeowners should bring in a professional to manage home renovations and decorating, such as when a task requires specialized skills. These types of jobs, when done incorrectly, will incur even greater costs if attempted on your own. However, many of the home improvement tasks that go into staging a home are simple enough that the homeowner can DIY them, such as painting, installing a backsplash, or refinishing the deck. Doing these tasks yourself will save you a significant amount of money.

Don't Redo, Update

Homeowners are often eager to make their houses look as appealing to buyers as possible. However, recall that the point of staging is depersonalization, making a home presentable so buyers can mentally impose their own style onto it. When staging a home on a budget, focus less on completely transforming the space and more on making what is there look presentable. For instance, if you wanted to give your bedroom a facelift, trying to replace the furniture and flooring would be pointless unless it was damaged or unkempt. Simply organizing the space and replacing the bed's comforter would be sufficient.

Maximize Space

Another way to update the space without entirely redoing it is to rearrange it to maximize the space that is already there. For instance, pulling the furniture away from the walls will make a room appear bigger and allows more space for those touring the house. Using window trimmings that maximize natural light and incorporating wall mirrors can also make a room seem more spacious.

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How To Create the Ultimate Home Office (Even With Zero Space)

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If you thought home offices are for people with space to spare, you thought wrong, my friend. Whether you're part of the tiny house nation or squeezed into a studio apartment, you deserve a spot in your home that inspires your creativity and motivates your inner-workhorse. So enough lounging in bed with your laptop. It's time to carve out a small but sensational space in your home that's dedicated to making your career dreams a reality.

The #CareerGoals Closet

If your closet is stuffed with boxes and cluttered with clothes, you're looking at a missed opportunity. Get yourself a bureau or a hanging rack for your clothing and then turn that space into a dream office. You can even use the racks and shelves to store your office supplies and files. All you need to do is take some measurements and head over to Lowes or Home Depot for customized shelving units, including one deep enough to serve as a desk.

Depending on the size of your closet, you may want to remove the doors and pretty up the back wall with a coat of paint or some peel-and-stick wallpaper (Wayfair has a variety of options.)

You can also paint the door-frame so that your office looks more picturesque. When it comes to lighting, swap out any overhead lights for a softer, more decorative pendant light.

If DIY shelving is daunting, IKEA's ALGOT system makes it easy to install your tiny desk wall unit.

ALGOT Wall upright/shelves - IKEAwww.ikea.com

If your closet isn't very deep or wide, you can keep it simple by purchasing a narrow, laptop or "mini" desk. This West Elm version is only 20" deep and 36" wide.

www.westelm.com

IKEA's laptop desk is even narrower at 14 1/8 inches deep.

VITTSJÖ Laptop table - white/glass - IKEAwww.ikea.com


The Nook Look

Is there an awkward indentation or an unused corner in one of your rooms? How about a space under a staircase or lofted area you've totally neglected? These are all ideal spots for a tiny office.

Desk nooks can be placed anywhere—even in the kitchen and can serve dual purposes as eating spots as well. One thing to consider is your light source. If you work better in front of a window, find the brightest spot in your place and set up shop.

The key is to keep your newly designated desk as minimal as possible. In addition to a desk surface, all you need is a small lamp and a few key sources of inspiration: A framed photo, a small plant, a decorative cup of pens. Make sure there's a uniformity to your look and keep the paperwork hidden away: a clean desk area = a clear mind.

If you're looking for some ready-made office nooks, The Container Store has a built-in version they'll install for you.

images.containerstore.com

You can also keep it understated and simple with a simple corner desk, or a floating corner desk area.

Wayfair.com

Overstock.com

The Hideaway Desk

Your home office doesn't have to be on display 24/7. In fact, there's something comforting about putting your work away when you're finished with it. These days, there are plenty of ways to do just that—by blending your desk into your cabinetry or walls.

You can even disguise your desk as a cabinet in your own bookcase.

Something to keep in mind if you're hiding your desk: finding a desk chair that can also double as a side chair. You might want to skip the wheeled office versions and instead go for a cozy side chair or an extra dining chair draped in faux sheepskin that can double as seating for guests when your office is closed for business.

Depending on how much space you have for your desk area, you can score a bookcase with a flip-top desk like this one from Walmart.

Walmart.com

Meanwhile, Wayfair's wall-mount desk converts to a wall cabinet in seconds flat.

Wayfair.com

Some desks double as armoires, which make them particularly bedroom-friendly.

Natalie Standing Accent Chestwww.wayfair.com

Others, like this one from AllModern, convert from a desk console to a dining table when guests are ready to get their grub on.

AllModern.com

AllModern.com

So now you know, home offices aren't just for people with boatloads of square footage. Sometimes, the smaller the area the more creative you can get.

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How to Assemble the Best Home Renovation Team

If there's any endeavor that really does take a village, it's home renovation. As you tear down walls, imagine the kitchen of your dreams, and install large appliances, you'll be dealing with a team of specialists. Here's how to put together an Olympic-worthy dream team.

The Visionary


"I always half-rolled my eyes at real estate listings that said 'Bring your architect.' It sounded impossibly high-flown, perhaps aimed at the type of people who traveled with an entourage of servants," a New York City renovation survivor wrote on Curbed. "But let me say this flat-out: The best thing we ever did for our renovation was hire an architect." An architect listens to your ideas and helps you think through the design, then translates all of that into a plan that can be made real. Expect to pay 10 to 20 percent of the overall project cost.

The Project Manager


Think of the general contractor as your project manager. They take those plans from the architect and executes it with a team of subcontractors they have on speed dial. That means you don't need to spend hours of your own time to find individual tradespeople to paint, plumb, and carpenter. Even if your project doesn't require an architect, if your renovation will require more than one specialty tradesperson and cost a few thousand dollars, you need a general contractor.

Ask people you know for references and see if neighbors have had projects similar to yours done. The rule of thumb is to interview several contractors and receive a bid from each before you decide. Expect to pay 25 percent of the project cost.

The Stylemakers


You really don't need an interior decorator or designer for your renovation, but for some, choosing between hundreds of different countertops, cabinets, and floors gives a flooding sense of decision fatigue. In those cases, the expertise of a designer may help you feel less overwhelmed. Find certified designers through the National Kitchen & Bath Association (nkba.org) or the American Society of Interior Designers (asid.org). Designers will charge somewhere between 4 and 7 percent, according to Consumer Reports, but you can expect to pay an interior decorator, especially of the Million Dollar Decorator variety, up to 20 percent for them.

The Generalist

When your renovation is complete, you will hopefully no longer require the services of highly-trained specialists like plumbers, carpenters, and painters. It may not be a full-blown renovation, but home repairs will still come along that are too much for you to handle.

In those cases, you need a handyman or woman. Whether it's a silencing a squeaky front door or drippy faucet, hanging the projector screen, assembling bookshelves, cleaning the gutters, or power-washing the upstairs windows, no job is too small for this household helper. These people can also sometimes tackle slightly larger jobs, like installing a simple deck or building a ladder for your new above-ground pool. Angie's List says you can expect to pay anywhere between $50 to $100 per hour — but a good one is worth their weight in gold.

The Budget


You've got your team and your chomping at the bit for the kitchen of your dreams, but whoa there, Nelly. You need to set a budget for your project for you start getting stars in your eyes over German appliances and carrara marble. How much should you spend?

First, you need an overall estimate of the value of your house. One easy tool is to use Zillow's "Zestimator." Once you know how much your house is worth, a good rule of thumb is not to spend more than the value of that room as a percentage of your overall house value. Kitchens, for example, generally account for 10 to 15 percent of the property value, so if your home is worth $200,000, you'd want to spend no more than $30,000.

Where does that money come from? You've got a few options. You could refinance your mortgage, get a home equity line of credit, or a home equity loan. This choice can be overwhelming, so consult with a lender about which option is best for you.

Last but not least, you'll want to leave wiggle room for unforeseen expenses. Factor in 10 to 20 percent (or more) of your contracted budget for those imperfections that are revealed when the layers of your home are peeled away.

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