For many Americans, owning a home is one of their highest aspirations. Homeownership can be seen as representative of success. Owning a home offers a sense of stability and protection. It is place one can truly call their own as they begin shaping it in their own image. Owning a home is also expensive. No one knows this better than Parker & Sons, Arizona’s premier home services company. Parker & Sons has delivered high-quality work in the areas of plumbing, electrical, water treatment, heating, and cooling for over forty years. In their decades of service, Parker & Sons has learned that anything can go wrong with a home. For this reason, it is important to create an annual budget for home maintenance. Parker & Sons offers advice on the subject.
One of the most popular rules for creating an annual home maintenance budget is to set aside 1-3 percent of the purchase price of the home. Parker & Sons offers an example: If a home was purchased for $300,000, the homeowners would be advised to set aside $3,000-$9,000 for annual maintenance. Erring on the side of 3 percent would be considered quite cautious. Homeowners can set aside this budget as a lump sum, or they can opt to make monthly deposited into a savings account. To determine how much money they should set aside each month, they should take their total yearly budget and divide it by twelve. If there is money left at the end of the year, homeowners can opt to roll that over into the next year. If they consistently have an annual budget surplus, they may consider using the money for upgrades or remodeling to the home. Doing so will increase the value of the property.
Parker & Sons offers an alternative rule. Some homeowners find it better to create an annual maintenance budget based off of the square footage of the home. The widely accepted rate is $1 per year for every square foot. This means that homeowners would set aside $2,000 a year for a 2,000 square foot home.
Additional considerations are the age of the home, location, and current conditions.
“Home maintenance is one of those things that no one wants to spend money on. However, it is a necessity. Creating an annual budget for home maintenance can go a long way towards alleviating some of the pain associated with pay for plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling repairs and maintenance,” said Justine Kelly of Parker & Sons.