Homeowner's Disease

On my first day as a homeowner I had to slide under the front gate because it was jammed so bad I couldn’t get it open. The whole process had felt like pushing shit uphill, so it was a fitting ending. I went through on my back, turning my head to one side, exhaling my ribcage as flat as possible then tilting my pelvis back and forth to get my hips and bum through. I emerged triumphant, nothing could get me down. Getting in like a thief is still getting in.

I always thought I’d die renting so the process of buying property was something I was completely unprepared for. For years there was a lot of media coverage about housing affordability with pictures of sad professional couples who couldn’t afford to buy or had to queue for rental viewings. It was great because I never thought about it being a possibility. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to combine finances with a man in that way and I didn’t have a steady white-collar job at that time, so the housing crisis was nothing for me to worry about. I used some lateral strategies to get rentals and it always worked out fine.

Then basically my friend was looking to buy and I got FOMO. That’s true, but now that I’m thinking about it there was more to it than that. Before that I made a plan to get myself out of a hole that I was in with my finances and relationship. I’d been working part-time for a while because I was struggling so much with working a job that I hated and then coming home and doing the second shift of housework for myself and my ex. So I applied for a fulltime and permanent job at my work and told my boyfriend I couldn’t live with him anymore. He moved out and we stayed together for a few more months before calling it quits completely. It was all pretty awful emotionally. I had this flatmate I couldn’t stand and my poor old cat died. Incidentally I quit drinking a week before my breakup, I think not being able to booze through it made me stronger in the long run. I felt physically awful every day and I had to do some research on myself to fix it which took a few months, but now I know what I need to do to keep functioning at a high level.

Anyway digression aside my friend, who was also my neighbour, started going to open homes and I got FOMO. I also had like 150k in savings because I’m “good with money” (cheapskate and lucky). I started researching the process and figured out that I could be paying less in mortgage repayments and other housing-related costs than I was paying in rent at that time (the unlikeable flatmate moved out and I couldn’t be bothered getting another one). So it was a straightforward and rational financial decision to try to buy a place, who could stop me?

My bank was if anything too willing to lend me money. I could not see myself having much of a life if I was paying back the maximum amount that they would let me borrow. That cut out a lot of options. Prices were still pretty silly at that time and a lot of the properties had pretty bad things wrong with them. The asbestos, the closets full of ants, etc. There were a couple that I thought I could make work, but fortunately there were stupid things that ruled them out or held up the process so much that I didn’t end up getting anywhere. In hindsight they both would have sucked. When my apartment came up for sale it was the best thing I’d seen so far and I thought there was no way I’d get it.

I think I’ve blacked out some of the parts after that. I wept on the phone to my mortgage manager because I was so frustrated by all the things I had to piece together that no one fucking explains to you. I had a lawyer briefly, and then a different lawyer because the first one went on holiday. I wrote a will. I got triggered about my parents not equipping me for the world in useful ways. When my offer went unconditional the real estate agent sent me ugly flowers, then after I moved in they gave me a voucher for a catered 3-course dinner that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have a fridge yet. Later I got a fridge, redeemed the voucher and ate the food for a week. I slept on my couch for the first few nights then got a bed.

I had everything I needed and I had just made the biggest financial commitment of my life. Then a few months later the first signs of sickness emerged: I started thinking about doing up the kitchen. I was annoyed by the ugly dark fake-wood veneer on the cabinets. I couldn’t really do anything about it because I had no money, even sticky vinyl was looking a bit dear. I contented myself with swapping out the ugly corroded cabinet handles with some shiny new ones on clearance from ArchiPro. But the seeds of dissatisfaction were sown. I was pissed off about the way the previous owners had done the bathroom and the whole apartment was way too dark once winter all-too-quickly set in. My bedroom was a concrete box. My houseplants were ailing. I spent weeks repainting the 59 separate alcoves of the built-in shelves using leftover paint that came with the apartment. I cycled through different rugs, curtains, bedside tables and bathroom storage solutions, spending money in 50 and 100 dollar increments that I couldn’t really afford. I liked my place but I couldn’t stop thinking about changing it. 

Things simmered down after the first year. All the things I wanted to change were still on my mind, but I contented myself with knowing that the perfect couch exists and not buying it. I kept a list of items that I would buy if I got really lucky and found them in an op shop, but otherwise what I already had would do. Owning a big, silent inverter fridge was pushed into a future where I live somewhere with flat access. I did get a heavily subsidised heat pump installed courtesy of the EECA (she’s a 6, but she’s an 8 on the New Zealand Deprivation Index), which was a very worthwhile upgrade. The next winter was a lot dryer. I also made liberal use of anti-mould primer which sounds like a disgusting landlord special, but actually works really well. I got in the habit of deep cleaning, minimising clutter and doing small repairs straight away. These cost pretty much nothing and make you feel way better about your surroundings. Recently my friend who’s into feng shui showed me a new way of laying out my living area which has afforded me more privacy and space for seating, plus a little folding tabletop I put in that I’m writing on right now.

All in all I got to a pretty good place of wanting what I already had. Despite spending a lot of time staying in other people’s homes, some of them quite upmarket, I preferred my own little place. Then I took a big leap backwards.

When I bought my place I inherited a building consent that the previous owners had obtained to build an extension onto the apartment. It would add a bedroom and decking on top of an existing outdoor area. At first I didn’t have any money to be thinking about anything like that, but as I began saving up again I posted the job on a trades website to try to get an idea of what it would cost. It seemed like a smart investment, if I had money sitting in the bank surely it would be better to use it to increase the value of my property. The idea of the hypothetical renovation lodged itself into my mind. I set aside the amount of money that I thought it was going to cost while waiting 6 months for a builder to get back to me with a quote. I started picturing the new room and what I’d do with it. I got emotionally invested in carrying out the work to transform my one-bedroom apartment into something that could be more useful to society. Maybe a family could live there after me! When I got the estimate and it was 30k more than my upper limit and with a bunch of exclusions, I was barely deterred. I fixated on ways I could still make it work. The builder told me some encouraging stuff about areas where I could save money (why would I pay someone to do interior painting?) and I started thinking about things I could cut back on to allow me to save 2k a month. I could live off $50 spending money per week if I really wanted to. My standard of living would go to shit, but think of the ROI.

Thus I found myself locked in a death spiral with my own home. Who would own whom? Who would make a profit? Who would get fucked over? This was much worse than the consumerist treadmill. Speculation about the market had led me into a relationship of exploitation and resentment where there should be care and gratitude. The shortcomings of the property were a personal threat to me and my future. The value of my home became flattened to whether I would make a buck off it and how much I could squeeze out of the next owners. I don’t know anyone who bought a house intending to get onto the property ladder, but the reality is we rely on someone else getting fucked a bit for us to move onto the next step. And I was willing to martyr myself too in that way that boomers love, suffering and having no life so that I could fund the extension.

Or not. When I checked the current asking prices for places similar to mine it was not looking good. The area I’m in continued dropping in value after the property market generally plateaued. Then I read through all the documents relating to the building consent for the first time and realised how over-ambitious the plan was. I would not be allowed to have any significant variations from the previous owners’ plans without getting the consent modified. I would have to use specific types of paint and flooring to comply with the fire report, and for some reason would have to fire-proof a cupboard that’s not part of my property. I could see the costs mounting up at the end to meet everything required for compliance, after the money would have run out. I realised I couldn’t do it and went out for a long run to let the idea sink in. When I got back I was relieved.

Now that I’ve avoided that particular hell I can continue spending my income on things that I like and need. I can use the money I saved to pay down my mortgage, which is a much sounder financial decision. I can try to be grateful for just being at home, sleeping in a bed and having a place to wash my clothes. Having said that there are some significant improvements I could make to the bathroom, and I could maybe get someone to look at my extractor fan that doesn’t really do anything, and there’s some rotting timber on the wall outside that’s going to peel away soon …

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