We bought our first home in 1966 for $16,000 by paying $750 in back taxes and assuming a 4% mortgage. Our house payment was $150/month. It was a 2000 sq ft 4-bedroom ranch with a 1 car garage, and a full basement on a 1 acre lot in Weldon Springs in St. Charles County, an exurb of St. Louis. We moved my mom and her furniture with us and rented her home in Maplewood so she could be closer to her work and her grandkids. We replaced damaged doors and carpeted the hall and living room. I sanded and refinished the redwood front and we added decorative trees and new shrubs in the front. My brother lived next door and we added central air conditioning and replaced water pipes with ¾ pipe. We replaced the pink roof with a white roof and his boys painted the bouse. We poured a bi-pass driveway and a patio in back. We plowed, fertilized rototilled and planted gardens in the back of our lots with corn, vegetables and strawberries. I expanded the septic tank field.
I built a cedar closet in the basement. We lived in this house for 9 years and sold it for $36,000 in 1975. We moved my mom back to her house in Maplewood across the street from her family home where her parents raised 12 children. She had banked the rent money she earned.
We bought our second home in 1975 for $55,000 It was 6 years old. We payed the downpayment with $15,000 from the $20,000 we made on the sale of our first home. Our house payment was $300/month. It was a 3000 sq ft tri-level with a living room, dining room, family room, kitchen and 1 bedroom on the 1st floor and 3 bedrooms and bath on the 2nd floor, It had a 2 car garage and a full basement on a ½ acre lot on the “Hill” in Salina. We had storm water erosion in the creek that ran next to our driveway and hauled sandstone rocks to build a retainer wall. We replaced 2 cracked cedar boards and repainted the house from green to grey. I added insulation to the attic. We chased away termites before they could do any damage. Kitchen and Laundry room appliances were green. We lived in this house for 9 years and sold it for $85,000 in 1983.
We bought our third home in 1983 for $137,000. It was 8 years old. We had a 13% mortgage interest rate. We refinanced at 10% and took a 15 year mortgage at 7% and paid it off in 2002. Our house payment was $1400/month. It was a 4000 sq ft 2 story brick Colonial with 6 bedrooms, 2 baths and 2 half baths. It included a covered 340 sq ft screened porch, a 2 car garage and a full basement on a 1 acre lot at the end of a cul de sac and a 50 ft treed buffer zone in the back. We had 10 trees removed from the front yard. This house needed us. I bought a 40 foot ladder to repaint the Masonite siding and did so every 5 years. We had a lawn sprinkling system installed. We added a garage door. We repainted and recarpeted the house. We replaced the roof with a Elk 35 year architectural. We replaced the wood fence at the back of the lot. Kitchen and Laundry Room appliances were yellow. The kitchen floor was linoleum. It had cheap dark paneling in the family room, kitchen, garage and basement. The family room, dining room and living room had hardwood floors. The original built-in cabinets were cheap and damaged. I expanded the driveway pad to allow for 3 to 4 car parking at the top of the driveway. I dug out 35 wheelbarrows of dirt from the crawl space in the basement to allow for it to be concreted over. We removed all the dark paneling and had a hardwood floor installed in the Kitchen. We had the hardwood floors in the kitchen, laundry room, living room, dining room, family room refinished in light oak and bought formal rugs. We had the cabinet fronts resurfaced and doors replaced in light cherry and added a built-in Sub-Zero refrigerator. We had our Air Conditioning Condensers moved from the back to the side basement patio. We replaced and upgraded our HVAC units from 2.0 tons to 2.5 tons in the attic and 3.0 to 3.5 in the basement and added larger air and return ducts. We raised the pipes to the ceiling in the basement and drywalled the basement walls and ceiling and recarpeted the basement. We poured concrete pads to seal the house from moisture. I designed a backyard patio plan and dug out dirt from the back to install a drain to move rainwater away from the house and built a brick patio with 13 tons of granite sand and 14 pallets of brick. We replaced our gas grill on the patio. We had our siding replaced with concrete fiberboard and had our screen porch walls reinforced and resurfaced and all surfaces repainted. I designed and installed a fireplace upgrade to cover the ceiling to floor brick with a marble seat, drywall front, a wood mantle and Fypon elements. We have had one sewer replacement and two water line replacements. We replaced a water heater. I finally hired a company to apply chemicals to the lawn. We rebuilt this home from scratch. We were able to do a lot of the work ourselves, but got good deals from our builders. We spent about $100 000 on improvements. Mortgage costs were $319,200. We have lived in our house for 40 years and have really enjoyed upgrading it. Homes in our neighborhood are selling for $750,000.
Our home investment is the
primary source of our family wealth. Our plan is to continue to maintain our
house and leave this house to our kids. This post shows that home ownership is
free and that all the mortgage payments we made have been returned by
increasing the value of our home.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea
Party Leader
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea
Party Leader
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