Recently my wife and I decided we wanted to buy a home. We found out that we were expecting a little one and wanted to have more space for ourselves and the imminent arrival. Being cramped up in an apartment and giving our money away for the privilege just stopped being appealing so we decided to start looking for a home. Living at home with the parents, they made it look so easy. Yeah, we were latchkey kids and the parents were working most of the time but nonetheless the house was in order and the bills were paid. They made it look so easy to be a homeowner that I desired the same thing for myself when I grew up. Well the time had arrived and in early spring of this year we set out in the car looking at neighborhoods around the area. After all this wasn’t just our first home, we saw this as an investment. Being a military family we can expect to move several times before we find our pure slice of heaven to retire to. Finding a home in a good area we then moved on to trying to procure this little home officially. That’s when the reality of home buying and the pit falls hit us. It is plain to see why most people just rent. At the store you see something you want to buy advertised at a price and that’s that. With home shopping there were so many fees that the tidy sum I had saved from deployments took a big hit. Grin-and-bear-it was our mentality as we thought of living in our own place. We needed to redo the entirety of the exterior and interior. Everything needed painting but unknown to us at the time was the need to replace fixtures that over time had been neglected. Outside there was no driveway and the decks were ignored for far to long. Something would have to be done about all these things. So with all said and done we got the house and everything that comes with it, loads of unforeseen bills and expenses. If you plan on doing the jump from an appartment to buying your own home I suggest you put more money away for the repairing you will have to do. I did get a new kitchen sink though and the driveway looks great after being paved. My other thought on this was all the people who had put in work helping me fix this house. A majority of them didn’t own their own home. It is ironic to me that these hardworking people couldn’t afford a place of their own but are out here banging out a living. Middle income families are getting crushed and my constant progression of paying expenses just for buying a house becomes insignificant. I’m lucky enough that I can be afforded the opportunity to own a home. Good luck for those of you in the same pursuit. It doesn’t come cheap.