home

Don’t Buy a Home with a Swimming Pool. Here’s Why.

home with a swimming pool

If you care about saving money then don’t buy a home with swimming pool. Yes, it’s a nice little luxury. It can offset certain costs. However, in the long run, it’s not a good financial decision.

Justifications for Buying a Home with a Swimming Pool

There are definitely some justifications for buying a home with a swimming pool. It can offset certain costs.

For example, maybe your kids will spend all summer with their friends in your pool. Then you don’t have to pay for other entertainment, camps, and activities.

Likewise, you can have your family to your house so that you don’t have to travel to a family reunion. Everyone can just enjoy the pool.

If you have a pool to swim laps in every day then you don’t need to pay for a gym membership. There are definitely ways that a pool can help pay for itself a little bit. However, overall, the benefits don’t outweigh the costs, speaking financially.

Don’t Buy a Home with A Swimming Pool

If you have a home with a swimming pool, then you have a home that costs you more than it should. There are daily and routine expenses that go up because you have a pool. Plus there are unexpected expenses that can eat into your emergency fund.

The Cost When You Buy a Home

If you want to add a pool to your home, then obviously you have to pay all of the costs associated with that. However, even if you want to buy a house with a swimming pool, there are added costs. You’ll have to pay for a separate pool inspection before you buy the home.

Increase in Household Expenses

When you plan your budget out for the month, you have to plan on spending more because you have a swimming pool. For example, a home with a swimming pool has much higher energy bills than a home without one. You need electricity to run the pool pump. There are extra costs if you add lighting to swim at night or if you have a heated pool. You can easily spend $300 a month or more on extra energy costs when you have a home with a swimming pool.

You may also find that your home insurance costs go up. Swimming pools are considered a safety risk, so insurance companies charge you more when you have one. If you do have to file a claim related to the pool, your costs will go up even more.

Your swimming pool also results in other ongoing costs at home. You will have to pay for pool maintenance. Even if you do all of the cleaning yourself, you have to purchase specific supplies to keep the pH at the right level and so forth.

Emergency Costs

Finally, there are emergency costs associated with pools.

Going back to the aforementioned safety issue, you may have an increase in injuries in your home resulting in emergency room visits, paying liability costs, etc.

Even if you manage to avoid those bills, your pool itself will likely need repairs at some point. You’ll use a pool vacuum to clean it, a pool pump, and other supplies that will break and need replacing. The pool has a lining, and a break in that lining is one of the most common repairs people need. That’s not cheap.

The Cost When You Sell a Home

Finally, when you go to sell your home, you’ll discover that because of all of these things, your home’s resale value is actually lower thanks to your decision to add a swimming pool.

Read More:

If You Haven’t Refinanced Your Home Mortgage, Here’s Why You Should

Haven't Refinanced Your Home

Mortgage rates are at a big-time low. Therefore, if you haven’t refinanced your home, it’s the perfect time to do so. You could save yourself a whole lot of money in the long run by making that change right now.

Mortgage Rates Are At a Low

Current mortgage rates certainly aren’t the lowest that they have ever been. However, they’re definitely low. CNBC reports that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now 3.73%. That’s lower than anytime in the past three years. With mortgage rates fluctuating dramatically even in the years before that, there’s a good chance that your own home mortgage is priced at a higher rate.

Haven’t Refinanced Your Home? You Might Be Losing $3200 Per Year.

The report indicates that on average, if you refinance your home to these low mortgage rates, you could save $266 per month. That adds up to nearly $3200 per year. Sure, you could do nothing and keep paying that interest to your mortgage loan. But why?

You could take that money and enjoy it. Better yet, you could take that money and make it work for you. Keep paying the same amount to your mortgage each month, but allow that extra money to go towards the principal. After all, you’re used to spending that money each month. If you refinance your home, then you owe less in interest. Paying the same amount you’ve been paying means that you’ll pay off your mortgage that much more quickly.

You’re Not Alone if You Haven’t Refinanced Your Home

According to that report, there are more than 8 million homeowners who haven’t refinanced to take advantage of these great rates. So, if you haven’t refinanced your home mortgage, then you’re certainly not alone. But just because millions of other people are wasting their money doesn’t mean that you should, too. Savvy home owners check regularly to see if refinancing your home makes financial sense. It’s something you should do periodically to make the most of your money.

In particularly, if you have an adjustable rate mortgage and you have not refinanced your home then you’re probably making a mistake. The security of a low fixed rate mortgage simply can’t be underestimated.

But I Just Got My Mortgage Last Year!

Many new homeowners mistakenly think that they have to wait for years before refinancing their home mortgage. That’s not the case at all. Sure, when rates are steady, there’s no reason to refinance. However, when rates change as much as they have lately, it’s worth it refinance whenever the rates are lowest.

If you just got your mortgage in the past year or two then you may not have even thought about refinancing yet. However, if you haven’t refinanced your home while the rates are lowest, then you might miss your best chance.

The report indicates that more than one third of borrowers who just got their home mortgage last year could benefit from refinancing now. That adds up to approximately 1.5 million people who could save money if they refinance their home. Are you one of those borrowers?

Read More:

Do Smart Homes Save Money?

smart homes

I was thinking about adding some smart technology to my home. I had been visiting a friend who had Alexa set up to control all sorts of different things in the house. I got a kick out of saying, “Alexa, turn on …” and choosing the lights I wanted on and off, the music I wanted playing, and so forth. I’ve seen those commercials with the refrigerators and ovens that practically do everything themselves with just the sound of a voice. We’re all moving towards having some version of smart homes. However, when I looked into the costs of just a few of those things, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

Do Smart Homes Save Money?

I’ve always figured that smart homes generally cost money to set up but have the potential to save money in the long run. However, I think that type of thinking primarily comes from the type of smart technology that makes a home more energy-efficient. When it comes to all of the technology available today to make a home more convenient, it may not actually save money. In fact, setting up a smart home can probably cost a lot of money that you don’t recoup. So, I’m trying to figure it out; do smart homes save money? Or do they at least have the potential to pay for themselves?

Energy-Saving Technology Can Save Money

Doing my research confirmed what I expected. It is possible for smart homes to save money if you’re talking about smart technology that saves energy. In other words, if you update your house to reduce energy waste then over time you can save a lot of money on energy bills. I found a helpful infographic that showed how some of this technology pays for itself then saves you money over the long run.

In fact, that research reminded me that I can make small investments that could make a difference. For example, I never thought about getting smart power strips. I use tons of power strips in my home already. Smart power strips monitor energy usage and turn the power off when it’s not in use. That could be really convenient. It could save energy. I like the green aspect of saving energy in addition to the fact that it helps me save money.

A smart thermostat is another really popular device in smart homes. It seems to also pay for itself in terms of quickly offering cost-effective energy savings. Of course, one could argue that simply setting your own thermostat to appropriate temperatures would achieve the same effect. So it’s not that we need the technology to save energy, necessarily, but it might be a small investment to make doing so more convenient.

Convenient Technology Doesn’t Necessarily Save Money

Some of the other technology in smart homes doesn’t seem like it pays off, though. For example, that same infographic shows details about smart refrigerators. A smart refrigerator can actually show you when items are about to go bad. Arguably, you might then use more of your food in time, and not wasting it could save you money. But it doesn’t save you that much. According to the infographic, it takes thirty years for a smart refrigerator to pay for itself. That’s before you would even start saving money thanks to it. Technology often needs frequent updates and repairs so it’s unlikely you’d keep that refrigerator much longer than thirty years (if you even make it that long).

Will I Invest In Smart Home Technology?

So, here’s what it boils down to … it doesn’t make financial sense for me to buy most types of smart technology for my home. The things that are most fun and add convenience generally cost more than they save. However, there might be a few small changes (smart power strips, smarter lighting) that could actually save me money in the long run. I don’t need them. It’s not something I’m going to get at this time. But as the technology keeps changing, I’ll keep reviewing the costs and benefits. It may make sense for me to look at smart homes again in the future.

Read More: