What maintenance is there to do exactly ?

alistairSH 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yard work, gutter cleaning, power washing exterior, cleaning windows, bi-annual HVAC service, exterior paint (especially if the house has any wood) and trim upkeep.

And as the house ages, you get things like repainting interior rooms, more frequent plumbing issues, major HVAC repairs, roof replacement, repaving driveway, electrical upgrades, remodeling, etc.

We downsized to a townhome to avoid some of that (half the walls are shared, so no exterior upkeep for those; smaller yard; fewer rooms).

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asdff 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You could just not do any of that stuff. Most people don't power wash their exterior or clean their windows. They don't call in hvac service, maybe just change the furnace or ac filter and probably plenty don't even know to do that. Exterior paint has become pretty rare in places that see weather but even then you can let it go to hell. Plenty do. Maybe some trim board will rot. Ehh. Priced in probably already when you bought it with that. Driveway you can also let go to hell, plenty of people use actual gravel or dirt. Roof replacement, plenty of people let that go too long. Repainting interiors, again something you don't have to ever do.

Is it good to do these maintenance items? Sure. But also, the house isn't going to come down if they aren't done. You go around your city right now you will find very few homes are actually upkept to this level. Most see the bare minimum to avoid the city fining you for the grass being too long, and many are sold in whatever state they are in.

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darth_avocado 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you have a big enough yard, yard work in itself is a constant stream of work even if you have all the right equipment

	▲	blackjack_ 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have 2/3rd of an acre, but most of it is a 45 degree hill, so it's more like a full acre equivalent of flat ground (except drastically more of a pain). Pulling weeds up several hundred feet of steep hillside that grow back constantly is a punishment worthy of Sisyphus. It hadn't been done for about 5 years when we moved in, so one of the neighbors spent 200 hours cleaning it up for us. Not joking, 200 hours of labor. Scotch Broom is a literal nightmare.

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netule 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

To add to the list: Replacing bad wood, pest service, aging appliances, fence maintenance, septic emptying (depending on your location), flooring wear and replacement, grouting and caulking, pest control, exterior cleaning, etc.

It can occasionally feel like an endless stream of tasks.

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bluesummers5651 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is an ever-expanding list of maintenance tasks depending on the age of the house and its systems, all with different periodicities. A roof will typically not need to be replaced very often (let's say once every 20 years), but cleaning gutters at least annually is a must because overflowing gutters can lead to foundation issues, rot, etc. Depending on the size of the yard and what vegetation it has, yardwork can be at least a couple of hours a week in the warmer months. Making sure drains are clear is good practice to avoid catastrophic failure. And there's always random things like a fence board that needs to get replaced, chipped door that could use repainting, trim that needs replacing, etc. Newer houses will have (hopefully) fewer of these menial tasks, but as houses age things inevitably need attention due to the fact that it has to weather the elements and daily use all the time.

How much an individual homeowner cares about the minor cosmetic things vary, but skipping out on regularly checking the major stuff can lead to incredibly expensive problems like flooded basements, structural issues, major leaks, etc.

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bombcar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The IRS allows you to depreciate rental real estate on set terms and ages, and they’re not really giving you much of anything. Houses have a complete and complex list of maintenance items.

If they didn’t, living in a rental that the landlord doesn’t spend anything on maintaining would be fine.

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steveBK123 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Basically everything. People think of homes as static but they are a big machine that is aging.

Nothing is getting better with time, only worse.