My toilet is sinking into hell

A while ago teen daughter told me that she heard dripping coming from upstairs.

Recently while walking into our upstairs bathroom, I felt the floor sagging around the toilet. I'm guessing the floor is water damaged and soaked.

We have spent about $10,000 on a new air conditioner, furnace, and fusebox in the last year. All the money was poured into a credit card and a Home Depot interest deferred loan. My wife just started working part time, so we'll have this payed off in two years as long as we don't do a single thing that costs money and is fun during that time.

I think we have $90k in equity in our house, given the current market. I wish it were possible to find something that didn't require maintenance and was charming and delightful for $100k, like a shipping container home that was easy to maintain, or an RV that was built like an airplane.

Is apartment or condo life really that bad?

Over the last five years we are averaging $3,000 a year in repairs for our 1966 ugly rambler with a big yard we never use that I am tired of taking care of. That's $250 a month we should theoretically be setting aside for repairs.

Apartment life is fine. The flexibility is something very undervalued. Home ownership isn't for everyone but our society is brainwashed into thinking that it is a fundamental right and it's the thing to do and that "paying rent is like burning money" which is absolute garbage

Lots of people buy homes that they can't afford. It anchors you and puts your balls in a vice.

Dont think that owning a home is the only answer when deciding where to live. You've already overcome the biggest mental hurdle anyway, being open to the idea that your budget issues could be helped by looking at your home. Most people never consider that an option .

I lived in a town home for a while - 2 stories and a basement. It shared a wall with another unit.

Met some of my favorite people at that place, and it was quieter than one might surmise. Basement was my office/pool room/RC car battle arena, and the upstairs bathroom was where I grew pot and blew the stink out of the fart fan.

Awesome, and cheap.

That sucks. Plumbing is the worst because you can't see it when it goes wrong until it's too late.

A bathroom floor is easier than it looks, and cheap. I'm not saying you shouldn't move, but you could probably do this for $400 yourself.

I assume that your toilet is sinking into the bowels of hell.

Homeownership is vastly overrated. Unfortunately my life partner is emotionally invested on being a homeowner, so we own a home.

Here is the classic anti-ownership manifesto:
jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-hous...terrible-investment/

You will almost always make more money renting and investing the difference. Plus if the neighborhood goes to pot, you can easily pick up and move without losing a ton of money.

Sag is right. It wont cost much to fix. Renting is ok but depending on where you buy ownership is a good investment. It isnt always but usually you can make out ok.

Google will at least help you diagnose where the problem is without paying someone to do it.

It could be something as easy as repairing the beams, subfloor, and putting a new seal down. As an aside, I like the rubber seals rather than the wax. When my wife had purchased a trailer before we were dating, a group of us repaired the place. The toilet was one of the things to be repaired. From your description, it should be pretty easy. Is the ceiling soft under the bathroom. I would be concerned about mold.

If my wife didn't want a house, we would be in an condo in the city for sure. There are benefits to a house. We can garden, grow plenty of flowers and such. I also have a great place to host my Beer Olympics. Condo/townhome/apartment living can be pretty nice.

I like having a shed and a place to put the kayaks. I haven't done anything in the shed for the last couple of years except store tools to repair things that have gone wrong with the house. I'd like to put a space heater out there so I can hide from the family.

I'll check the ceiling, but it is covered by drywall.

I had a slightly expensive year last year with home repairs: new furnace, some electrical work, chimney repair, and refinished floors. Plus a storm took down a big section of an old tree, so I spent a month of weekends on that. The electrical and the floors were only necessary because my long-term girlfriend was finally moving in with me.

I don't miss apartment life at all. My house is not big, but I would need to pay $300 a month more to rent the same square footage in this metro area, and then get random neighbors and their noise. Home ownership is like a forced retirement savings account, except that you can tap into your equity with less penalty than doing an early withdrawal from your retirement funds..

But you're comparing renting a metro apartment with the same square footage. Who would rent something that much unless they were rich?

I dunno....we got into our house in the Austin suburbs about 10yrs ago. In that time the market here has exploded to where even the houses outside the city have shot up. Our monthly mortgage is _less_ than an apartment rental in our same suburban town. It's nuts. So, in our situation owning has paid off for sure. Sure we've had some house maintenance over the years, but we're saving money and building (some) wealth...on top of the benefits of living in a home.

I suppose it's as they say...location, location, location...

EDIT: The downside....we've outgrown our house but the market here is too costly to justify paying XXX more to just live in the same area and do the same things. We've gotta make this work or move out of the area...

A mortgage is more or less rent control. When you include the costs of maintenance it really doesn't pay off until you've been in it ten years. I paid off the mortgage in 20, so now it looks like a great investment. But it was tough those first five or so years when it seemed you had to buy or repair darn near everything in the house.

That's true.

We've also considered renting, where we could no doubt pull in about $600 over our monthly mortgage. If I were to rent, I'd want to stay in the area to be available. However, we go back to that issue of the area being so damn expansive now. Smart move is to rent and move far away where living expenses are far less. Our dollars would also go farther. However, we're sorta tied to the area due to my pension.
Still, maybe we leave for a bit and come back. I'd like that for the kids.

Mr. White wrote: EDIT: The downside....we've outgrown our house but the market here is too costly to justify paying XXX more to just live in the same area and do the same things. We've gotta make this work or move out of the area...

We're raising four kids in 1800 square feet finished. Everyone told us the house was too small and that we "deserved" bigger, but we made it work, kept our mortgage low and paid it off early because of it. Outgrowing your house is often more about what the culture is pressing on you than what you actually need. Families of five live in 600 square feet in Japan and they make it work.