The Ups and Downs of Single Homeownership

I made the decision to be a single homeowner almost five years ago (it'll be five years this May).  This was not a decision I took lightly.  I had been toying with it for years, and honestly didn't really know if it was something I could do on my own.  Most of my friends were homeowners by then, but virtually all of them had become homeowners with a partner, not all of them were married yet, but there was a clear "life partner" in the situation that they could split the costs with, which wasn't the case for me.  I didn't have someone to lean on for unexpected payments, and trying to make sure the mortgage got paid every month.

But it felt like it was time.  I had made a pact with myself when I turned 30, and realized at that age that I had not taken a true vacation to anywhere other than New York (where I'd used to live, so it didn't really count as an actual "adventure" in terms of going outside my comfort zone) in over three years that I would stop putting off my life.  I had spent so many years simply being like "I'll go to Hawaii after I get married" or "I'll try that road trip after I get married" and I realized...what if I don't get married, and I ended up giving up years of my life for no one?  Travel, retirement investments, and eventually investing in what I'd call my "wedding registry project" (where I would invest in things like china, cookware, & nice towels that I would've gotten if I was married) became something I'd do, but the house...that was something different.  There were things I didn't know how to do, there were things I didn't know I could do.  But I realized that I wanted to retire when I was 62, I wanted to retire debt free, and I could only afford a thirty-year (not a fifteen-year) mortgage on my salary...so that scared me into looking for a house.  And after a few weeks of going into people's homes, understanding everyone has a different definition of "clean for a guest," and armed with my "checklist for what I want in a house" I came across my current abode, which was the equivalent of my dream house.  It had everything on the list (4 beds, 2 baths, a fenced-in backyard, a finished basement & an attached garage), and I took the plunge and bought it.

Being a single homeowner for the past five years, I've learned a few things, and I wanted to share some of them.  For starters, the things that scared me initially weren't necessarily the things that I worried about or became overwhelmed by.  Even if you are not mechanically-minded, you tend to get pretty good at certain house projects.  In the time since I've owned this house, I've fixed the dishwasher, the garage door, my lawn mower, snowblower, my sprinkler system...I am no one's definition of a qualified handyman, but through YouTube (god bless YouTube for single homeowners) & calls to my dad, I've figured out how to do things I didn't expect to do.  I also have amassed a list of people to contact about various activities like blowing out my sprinklers or fixing items I didn't know how to fix...I'd made a pact with myself when I bought the house that I wouldn't be too down if I had to hire people to do things that other people did themselves, and I've stuck to that.  Occasionally that means that I have to go longer to fix something (i.e. the first three years in this house I didn't actually use the fireplace because I didn't know where to go to fix it), but it's worth it.

I like that about owning your own home, and probably why I got into it-it becomes an extension of you in a way that an apartment simply doesn't, and that I didn't expect.  The dishwasher you're fixing is your dishwasher...it's not something owned by the rental property, and so you want to do it right, and you take pride in it in a sort of patriotic way that feels a little ridiculous to say out loud, but I did get into the pride of owning my own home.  It's something I love.  Every room started to reflect my personal tastes.  Not every room is where I want it to be yet, but as I sit and type this in the burgundy & white library that I have, with shelves of books surrounding me just like I pictured this room becoming when I first walked the house, I can't help but feel a little sense of "wow-this happened."

What I think is a struggle for single homeowners is that it's still daunting in a variety of other ways.  Financially, it's hard, and I get why single people don't do this.  There are years (like this year) where I'm basically just not taking a vacation because I need to spend a year investing in the house.  Very few public policies favor single people owning their own homes (save for being able to claim property taxes), and so you're kind of on your own whenever there's a rebate coming out.  I bought a hot water heater last year, as well as fixed a number of things (including one sink that I still need to tackle this spring) that don't work as well as they should, and it becomes expensive, and a little sad.  I think people frequently think of money as a lump sum, and they'll be like "you have enough to pay for X" but it's not just that-it's the fact that the money only comes from one place, so I try to be super cautious about how it's applied because I want to make sure there's a safety net if I fall.  As a result, there are things that I don't do that others do, like getting a new vegetable garden or expanding onto the house, because I need to do it at my own pace...I don't have someone in the house saying "we'll be okay, I'll help, let's make the jump."

Owning your own home as a single person also means nothing gets done that you didn't do.  This might make sense to say out loud (obviously, if you don't clean, it's not going to get clean), but I think married or coupled people don't quite get the absolute logic of that sentence.  Nothing gets done without me doing it.  Frequently when I say this to friends who have partners, they're like "well, my partner never does the laundry either!" but unless you're dating a total Andy Dwyer (Season 1) of a human being, they're doing something that's not on your To Do list.  They're making the appointments for the plumber or paying half of one of the bills or washing the bathroom sink...there's a finite amount of chores with a married couple, and basically none of them disappear if you're a single homeowner (I'm aware adding kids lengthens the list considerably, but that's a conversation for a different article).  I frequently say that one of the things that's hard to think about when you're married in your thirties is that frequently you have no concept of what being single is outside of your twenties, and you think single life doesn't really change between 24 and 34.  You assume that the relatively carefree life you had at 24 is what your friends that are single in their thirties are still enjoying.  That's really not the case though, as you settle down & your life becomes remarkably similar to your married friends with houses...except that you have no true support system to get everything done, and I'll be honest-it can be overwhelming.  There are days where I look at my To Do list and am like "am I a failure?" because I seem to always fall behind.  I'm aware that a big part of that is a lack of two people, but as society tries to romanticize single life, without making it seem like it has its unique difficulties, it feels like that "am I a failure?" conversation can be easier to believe.

Which brings me to the third aspect of home ownership that I wasn't quite prepared for-dating is weird & oddly hard when you're a homeowner in a way that it isn't if you own an apartment.  I stopped living in a major metro area (i.e. I moved to the suburbs) when I was 26, as living in the Bronx where I had to walk three blocks to do my laundry in the freezing January cold had taken all of the fun out of living in a city, and I wanted an in-unit washer/dryer regardless of how close I was to a brewery.  But moving to a house...you get two types of reactions from guys.  You either are dating another guy with a house, and suddenly it becomes a quick pissing contest over which one of you would keep the house if this works out (and I love this house...I'm not giving in on that argument readily) or frequently you're dating a guy who isn't ready for home ownership, and it becomes icy.  My last long-term relationship, he'd often complain if we went to my place because it was "too far away" (never mind that he lived in an apartment where I had to be worried about being towed every time I spent the night because he didn't have a guest parking spot), and that he wasn't ready for living in the suburbs.  Dating in general is hard as you get older because you're both mature and so breakups don't have obvious warning signs, but it also means that you know yourself well in a way you didn't in your twenties, and so it's harder to give in on things you know you really like, and that you've made work in your single life.  

This is part of why I waited on home ownership-I figured it'd be easier to do with another guy.  But you can't wait for life to happen to you, and all-in-all, five years in, I'm glad I bought the house.  I just wanted to put into the ether that sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's hard in a way that I can't articulate to my exclusively coupled friends (with two exceptions, all of my close friends are currently with life partners, and both of those single friends live far away), and wanted to share that this is the sort of stuff I'm complaining about when I'm like "I'm overwhelmed" or why I take one week off a year to just take a "Staycation" where I take care of every house project & to do list item under the sun so I don't feel overwhelmed by my life.  It's not silliness (for the most part)-it's keeping me above water & so I don't feel like this incredible part of my life I love so well doesn't feel like a burden.