Hi gamers. Three years ago I moved to Philadelphia. The reasons for this were many, timing was on my side, and the price was right. I saw an opportunity to own in one of the last affordable walkable cities on the east coast.

My logic being that with a fixed-rate mortgage, my rent can never go up.

Unfortunately after 3 years, there are some structural problems making themselves more known that need to be addressed & I had been putting off. There's pretty severe joist damage under the kitchen, and my kitchen floor tile has started cracking quite badly. Essentially, whole kitchen's gotta come out so they can replace the joists, re-do the subfoor, and then I get a nice shiny new kitchen out of the deal. In addition to this, our back door that exits from the kitchen to the little tiny concrete backyard we have is unusually small and prone to getting stuck, and the stairs are so steep and dangerous I really try to avoid going out there. The window next to the back door in the kitchen is mega drafty, I can put my hand up to it right now and feel a drastic amount of air coming in despite it being closed. Our front door, as well, is a weird size and shape, I think someone took a huge door and cut it to size, because it's wacky and non-standard, and the screen door uses plexiglass instead of perforated metal so as a screen door it's functionally useless. Basically we're gonna rip both of these out, build an 8 by 10 foot deck over the stairs, and slap a sliding door against the back wall.

To this end, me and my husband have been saving since we moved in to get these problems fixed, with the knowledge that we're basically not going to move again. West Philly isn't half bad, despite the trash all over the ground. The location of our house is very SEPTA-accessible, and it's especially convenient that the bus line that runs down our street is about 75% of my bus commute to work. But now it's time to get things rolling. I do not want to, but I must. I've spent a long time trying to convince myself that change is not always scary. But sometimes you can't out-logic an anxiety disorder.

We're at the beginning of this process. I reached out to four companies around here to see what it might cost to get my house fixed up.

One did not respond to me at all.

One e-mailed me that they were booked up for the forseeable future.

One, a home remodeling company that had stuck a 20% off coupon in my window, gave me a quote of eighty thousand of the united states own dollars (this was with the coupon applied)

The final one, my second choice based on reviews after the one that was all booked up, gave me a much more reasonable 46k quote, though some things were called out as not included, materials that I'd be picking out like doors and countertops and such. So that's who I'm going with, I've taken out a loan for this amount, and I'm keeping the savings ready for the other expenses.

Anyway, that thing about my rent never going up? True if you look at it in strict terms about the mortgage payment, but just because this loan isn't in the mortgage payment like my property taxes are doesn't mean it's not an increase to my housing costs.