A failing water heater can turn into a $4,000 invoice, and for most new owners it arrives within the first two years. Research from Jobber, which makes software for home service businesses, found that 72% of new homeowners spent roughly $10,000 on unexpected repairs in that window. Fifty-eight percent hit a repair need almost immediately, around move-in day.
“The biggest mistake first-time buyers make is assuming that if they can afford the mortgage payment, they can afford homeownership,” Daniel Amodeo, president of Boston-based Amo Realty, told Moneywise. A lender checks that income covers the monthly payment. Nobody checks whether anything is left for the roof, the HVAC system or the water heater.
The surprises are mostly mechanical
Alexei Morgado, a Florida real estate agent and founder of the exam-prep platform Lexawise, said the surprises are seldom cosmetic. They come from aging roofing, heating and air conditioning units, water heaters, plumbing and electrical systems, and from insurance deductibles. Systems installed in the same renovation tend to wear out in the same few years, so a buyer can inherit several at once.
A home inspection will not catch that. “Home inspection represents just a snapshot and is no guarantee of the life left in the equipment,” Morgado said.
Costs that keep climbing
A fixed-rate mortgage does not freeze the monthly cost of owning a home. According to Cotality, non-mortgage housing costs jumped 30% in 2025. ATTOM found the average national property tax bill reached $4,427 that year, up 3%.
Insurance has moved faster than inflation in every major US region from 2018 to 2024, and CNBC reported premiums rose another 7% from the start of 2025. The National Association of Realtors estimates home affordability is roughly 10% lower than it would have been had insurance costs held steady since the late 1990s. Morgado warns that a cheaper house in a high-risk insurance zone can cost more overall once wind and flood cover, large deductibles or a reassessment are counted.
What to set aside
Melanie Musson, an insurance analyst at Clearsurance.com, gave Moneywise a rule of thumb: “Save at least 1% of your home’s value each year for maintenance. If your home is older, you should save at least 3%.” On a $400,000 home that works out to about $4,000 a year, roughly $333 a month, or $12,000 a year for an older house.
She also urged restraint early on. If a dishwasher dies in year one, a scratch-and-dent replacement will do, and the high-end model can wait.
Amodeo tells buyers to leave the closing table with an emergency fund, “because it’s usually not a question of if something will break, but when.” In Jobber’s survey, 45% of homeowners said their one piece of advice to future buyers was to pad the repair budget with more cash than they think they need.
Bankrate research found that among homeowners who regret something about their purchase, 42% point to maintenance and hidden costs running far higher than expected.
