4 Tips for a New Homeowner

Oftentimes, the excitement of becoming a new homeowner results in a person losing a bit of focus on some important issues surrounding early days in a new residence. This is a perfectly understandable situation. In the end, owning a home is a significant personal achievement and likely the most important financial investment a person makes during the course of a lifetime. As a result, there are four tips a new homeowner needs to bear in mind.

Don’t Break the Bank to Personalize the Premises

When you move into a new home say in Scottsdale, you naturally may want to make changes to the property. This is likely the case even if you move into a new build. This natural tendency can result in unnecessary and even dangerous overspending.

By the time you take occupancy of a residence, you’ve already spent money on a down payment and other expenses. You likely are not in a financial position that you can embark on a course of additional significant spending.

Thus, you need to pay close attention to the bottom line when it comes to a desire to personalize and make changes to your new home. You can personalize and make alterations to your home over time and in increments.

Stay on Top of Vital Maintenance

Although you need to maintain some control over personalization and improvements when you initially move into a new residence, you cannot ignore maintenance issues. If you’ve rented in the past, you no loner have a landlord or property manager that is responsible for tending to maintenance issues. You need to make certain that you include money in your monthly budget to be set aside for use when a maintenance issue arises.

Hire Experienced Contractors

Unless you are an experienced “do-it-yourselfer,” don’t embark on home improvement projects on your own and without the assistance of experienced, qualified contractors. Shop around and get multiple estimates for a project; you will find that there can be significant price differences from one contractor to another for the same work. You will also want to undertake thorough due diligence to ensure that a particular contractor is duly licensed, bonded, and insured.

Seek Professional Tax Assistance

Your tax situation changes when you become a homeowner. As a consequence, you should seriously consider engaging the services of a tax preparation specialist to assist you with your tax return after you do become a homeowner.