This post is sponsored by U.S. Bank. All opinions, as always, are my own.
Last year, Brent and I bought a house.
The first house we put an offer on was in a super duper fantastic neighborhood. (SE 23rd and Clinton, for you locals in the audience.) It was a 15-year-old townhouse with a kitchen that would have needed remodeling, but other than that, it was awesome. I was thinking about how I was going to get rid of my car because we were right on a bike corridor, and I had all kinds of projects planned.
Then, the inspection report came back. Not only would I have gotten the chance to remodel the kitchen, but there was mold in the attic and the back porch was improperly installed to the point where the inspector told us to go back inside. We asked the seller to fix a few things, and did the math: if the seller fixed the things that needed fixing, we could do some smaller projects and maybe eventually take out a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) to redo the kitchen later.
But the seller came back and said, “no way, Jose. I’m not fixing anything!”
I wanted to push ahead. “At this price, we can make all those changes!” What I meant was, come on, husband, I want to live in this neighborhood!
I didn’t have a special attachment to the house, and the fact that it was 15 years old and had a laundry list of things that needed to be fixed meant that it was a house with bad bones. No amount of elbow grease could have helped us recover from that. If we had purchased it, the neighborhood would have been the only good thing about it.
We avoided our #DIYfails by buying a new construction townhouse in a different neighborhood in the city. And it was the right move for so many reasons:
- Our house has a one-year warranty, which we have used many times this year.
- We didn’t buy a house in the hottest neighborhood in the city. We bought in a neighborhood that is getting hotter every month, for sure, and it’s in a neighborhood where we can walk to all kinds of fun things, but it’s not the hottest place to be. We’re told that will be good for future resale value.
- Our DIYs now are of the “let’s add our personality to an already gorgeous space” vibe instead of “mold will do bad things to our health if we don’t address that immediately” vibe. The biggest #DIYFail I can tell you about has to do with my ability to paint a wall and avoid the ceiling.
If you’re all too familiar with DIY fails or simply want to take your home improvement projects to the next level, consider applying for U.S. Bank Home Equity Line of Credit to help you make the big, permanent fixes you need. To learn more, visit U.S. Bank’s Home Equity Line of Credit FAQ page.
And, even better, if you have photo evidence of any #DIYFails of your own, enter to win one of five $500 gift cards!
The contest is held on Facebook here.
U.S. Bank is an Equal Housing Lender. Loan approval is subject to credit approval and program guidelines. Not all loan programs are available in all states for all loan amounts. Interest rate and program terms are subject to change without notice. Property insurance is required. Mortgage and Home Equity products are offered by U.S. Bank National Association. Deposit products are offered by U.S. Bank National Association, Member FDIC.
