2018 living in our condo savings

I'm a firm believer that owning property is a good financial move if your planning to stay in one place for 8-10 years... and I wanted to prove it to myself. When I first bought my original condo at 23, I made a point to compare and track the different costs between renting, and owning... and I was shocked to find how much we saved by owning our residence.

So, each year we review how much it would cost us to rent a similar sized apartment, verses living in our condo. It's been awhile since I have updated our blog, but we have diligently collected our research and tracked our expenses despite failing as usual to actually post content on this space.

For 2018, we relied on our 2017 "apartment cost summary," which included a few things:

• I picked an apartment in a different city... however it was the same commute distance to our jobs. AND it WAS the city our day care is in, and it was a complex I used to live in so I was familiar with the "would I really live there" mentality. 

We "hypothetically" got a 2 bedroom there for $1905 ($400 deposit)  + $35 in pet rent ($400 deposit)

• The security deposit is full refundable if you live there at least 2 years... and we'd got a garage to make up for the modifications with some storage.
• We also assumed our "6 year old washer and dryer" (that we hypothetically purchased at the beginning of in 2012) would continue to function, thus eliminating the need for the coin operated laundry rooms at the apartment complex. 

Costs Associated with Apartment for 2018
We don't include electric bills below since we'd have to pay for those at either place, but my HOA fee includes water, gas, and trash so those will be listed in the apartment costs (the trash, water, gas amounts are based on actual #s from like 10 years ago, so I admit, they are low balled and not fully accurate)... and we assumed that our rent wouldn't go up for the 18 months this place was used as a benchmark.

Initial costs: 

• Deposit: $400.00 (18 month / 24 months for it to be refunded - paid in 2017) 
• Pet Deposit: $400.00 (18 month / 24 months for it to be refunded -  paid in 2017)

Monthly:
Trash: $15 a month
Water: $60 a month
Gas: $35 a month
Rent: $1,905 a month
Renters Insurance: $11.00 a month
Pet Rent: $35 a month

Hypothetical Annual Expenses: $24,732.00

Costs Associated with OWNING our Condo
Since we are still in the major "repairs and upgrades" mode to our condo, we are tracking all improvement expenses separately. Don't worry, they are contributing to our "in the hole" amount, but we don't want to count these costs TWICE in our housing expenses, so this is just basic operating costs. I figure in an apartment, I wouldn't be living with part of my house having no flooring... so those costs aren't listed here since that's a choice I'm making while we live AND renovate it at the same time. 

Monthly Mortgage: $764.00 (we round up $0.14 a month)
Monthly HOA: $350.00 - $367.50 (we had an increase in fees 1/2 way through the year)

• Mortgage: $9,169.00
• HOA: $4,305.00
• Insurance: $612.00 (Earthquake and Homeowners)
• Property Taxes: $3,418.67

TOTAL: $17,504.67

That means it was $7,227.33 CHEAPER to own our condo THAN rent an apartment... and that's with me skewing numbers in favor of RENTING...

I haven't blogged it yet, but that was what it cost us to put in a NEW shower/tub combo when we realized re-surfacing was not the solution! That's crazy!