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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
So I have some questions about owning a house...
Just thinking, is all. Anyone want to answer some highly personal questions? 
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%?
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)?
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house?
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner?
Edited to change the mortgage per month question into a poll. That's too personal for me to ask you guys, I've decided.
[Poll]
Re: So I have some questions about owning a house...
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? 10%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? We had enough for 3 months expenses left over, but of course I always wish we had more. I'd feel better with (and am working toward) 6 months
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? My only regret is that it made us less mobile. We're tied down here for at least 5 years now. I kind of figured we were anyway due to the nature of my job, but this made it final, you know?
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? This is our first single family home (we owned a condo in the past) so I guess yardwork is my biggest surprise. It's not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Also, I'm surprised I haven't come up for a plan yet for our "extra" room. It's suffering from an identity crisis right now.
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? 20% but some of that was the equity from our old house, don't know if that really matters to you
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? I don't remember how much (it was 5 years ago), but I'm sure it was not enough although we were fine at the time. I think we should have had 6 months living expenses
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? Now it sucks that we have to sell it and can't move until we do.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? 2 summers ago our a/c went out and then a few weeks later so did out water heater. It was an expensive summer. I expected things to break once in a while, but not 2 really pricey things at the same time
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? We put down 20%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? We had enough to cover us for 2 months. I wish it was alittle more but we had to find a house within a month so we didn't have to renew our lease again.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? There are somethings I wish I could change about our house but all in all I don't think I really regret buying it.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? I wouldn't say surprising but it has been nice to have something that belongs to you. We had lived in a rent house before we bought our house and every little thing we wanted to change we had to contact the landlord. But now if I want to replace the tree in the front yard I can just make that decision myself.
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? between 5 and 10.
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? We had enough. I have always been very good at saving money, and it helped that I was living with my parents during my first year of teaching before DH and I got married.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? Not at all!
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? I think it's surprising to realize that you have all kinds of little things to take care of. Also, we bought a new home, so there were things that we didn't think about buying until we got in the house and realized we needed them! (i.e. blinds!)
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? 20%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? We had plenty.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? We've been here three years and now it's about time to move. We bought before I was done with school. Not a good idea considering my chances of getting a local job are very slim. But at the same time, we got a good deal and our mortgage is cheaper than any rental I would consider living in.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? Well, this wasn't a surprise, but we are constantly fixing something. Our home is right at 10 years old and everything is breaking. If it's not one thing, it's another.
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? 20%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? Not enough...I don't know that we even had an 'emergency fund'. BUT, our mortgage is $200 less than the apartment we were living in at the time.... we also bought this house (duplex) when we were seniors in college, so we didn't have a lot of money...it worked out for us that time, but when we move again we will save up at least 3 months of income.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? No, I love it and it's cheap. (Our mortgage is $400/month... we'll be living here hopefully for at least 4-5 more years so we can save up a huge down payement on our 'forever home')
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? Not really 'surprising' but I love that I can put whatever I want on the walls or paint a room at my own desire!
Edited to change the mortgage per month question into a poll. That's too personal for me to ask you guys, I've decided.
We bought our house when I was 20, and pre-DR. I would have done a lot of things differently if I knew then what I know now.
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? less than 5%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? I think we had around 1 months expenses. Looking back I wished we had more, but it wasn't a problem.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? Not about the house itself, but I do wish we'd waited. I think we fell into the lie that you're "throwing your money away on rent" if you don't buy a house right after you get married. We bought too soon.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? *knock on wood* It doesn't cost as much as I thought to maintain. We rarely have to spend money on house repairs (and our house is 50+ years old).
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? 5%.
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? I say enough, but in all reality, we probably didn't have enough. I'd have liked to have had at least $10,000.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? No. It was actually an excellent investment. We paid about 1/4 of what it is really worth and I love that about it. It's in a decent area - small town kind of place. The only thing I wish could have been different - I would have liked to be on a few acres with no neighbors.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? Nothing, really.
1. How much of a down payment, roughly, did you make on your house? Less than 5%, 10%, 20%? Between 5 and 10%
2. How much did you have in your emergency fund before buying your house? Enough, not enough? How much did you wish you had had (realistically)? We had about 3 months. Of course I would have liked more (who doesn't?), but it worked out more than fine. It enabled us to be able to afford some things we didn't think of--a few furnishings, and the million trips to Lowe's and Home Depot for things we realized we needed but didn't have.
3. Do you have any regrets about buying your house? No. I know people on the Buying A Home board would have scoffed at us for having a less than 20% down payment and not having like a 2-year e-fund (they're nutty over there!), but the time was right for us. We both had stable employment, looked at houses FAR below the "what we were approved for" line so that we would have a mortgage payment that we were perfectly comfortable with, and I had been meeting with our loan officer for over a year to help tweak our credit and do what was necessary to make us financially ready (she was a huge help and more than anyone helped me learn about finances). I had also looked online at listings to see what was available in the price range we were looking at.
4. What did you find most surprising about being a homeowner? That our HOA seemed SO stupid strict, and yet the rental house across the street from us looks like a shithole (among other issues I have with those neighbors).One note though: Even though we didn't build our house, we bought it new from a very small local builder. I love that because I can contact him with any questions I have, whether about the house or some kind of repairs, and he knows about every aspect of the house, from what materials were used to how things were done. That makes things really easy, and I am super glad that we went that route. Someday when we decide to upgrade and build, if it is in the OKC area we will absolutely use our same builder.
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