Ep 042 - What Every First-Time Homeowner Needs to Know

Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast, where you'll discover strategies to save money, save time, and be better organized in managing your largest financial asset and biggest expense, your home. Your hosts, John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson, who are co-founders of HomeZada, have been supporting homeowners for over 20 years. They are here to share with you their tips and suggestions, as well as interviews with industry experts. With the goal of helping you become a smarter homeowner. Now here's your hosts, John and Beth.

Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. John's making funny faces. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Beth Dotson, and this is John Bedrosik. We are two co-founders of HomeZada, and we're here to talk to you today about being a You've bought a new home and you're now a first-time homeowner. What next? What do you need to do to help manage this home?

Throw a party!

Besides that, that is a good idea. Yeah, definitely a housewarming party for anything before you have any furniture, before you even move in. Maybe you just want to party. Um, that'd be great. And so today we'd like to talk about one, how you're going to operate your home. 2, where everything is. 3, how to care for it. And 4, how to prioritize any projects you need. And then 5, the overall cost of this home. And so a lot of different things going on, and homeownership is definitely a journey. It is definitely complex, and we're here to break it down to make it easier for everybody so when they're understanding it, they are a little bit more prepared getting into homeownership.

All after the first housewarming party, because you really want to meet your neighbors, and sometimes friends and family might bring some gifts over that you need to actually manage and operate your home, whether they're kitchen gadgets or lawn tools. Uh, is there's a side benefit to having a housewarming party because you might get something that actually helps you manage and operate your home. Totally.

Totally. And if you don't have any furniture in it, sometimes, sometimes it's even more fun to have a party because nobody can like ruin anything just yet. But that's okay.

And you can meet the cool neighbor that you can borrow stuff from. And then you may meet the not so cool neighbor that you're like, yeah, I'm not going to go over there.

Hopefully you have all cool neighbors, but it's a whole different story. So let's talk about people. We talked briefly about people buying a home and how they get into a home. Now they're in. Okay, we've kind of skipped the moving process. We'll talk about that another time. But they're in their home. First thing they need to do is know how to operate this whole thing. And in order to do that, part of what they need to do is they need to know where everything is. Okay, you keep laughing.

This is funny. Where's the steering wheel in the house?

It's the truth. You know, where's the dashboard? Right? How do I get all this stuff? And so Where, where is all of that? And it starts with understanding basically how does your house operate? Are you operating a house with gas, with electric, with solar?

Both.

With both? With what? And so you have to understand all of those connections. You also have to understand if you've got connections or do you have a wired house, a non-wired house, you got a wireless house? All these different elements is really important. And the first thing that I would recommend, and John, you can debate me, do whatever you want with it, but the first thing I would recommend is understanding how my house operates. Do I have gas, electric, and/or solar or anything else? That's the first thing. Battery packs on your walls or what have you. How's it operate? And then the next thing I need to know is what's connected where and how do those items operate? And what I mean by that is Uh, how do you turn your lights on and off? Like, what light switches work where? Um, how do your appliances work? The big ones especially— refrigerators, stoves, ovens, uh, those types of things. How's my equipment work? Do I have a tankless hot water heater, a tanked hot water heater? Does it, uh, work with, you know, gas? Does it not? Same thing with my HVAC unit. And you've talked about this in the past on other podcasts.

Yeah.

The HVAC unit is not one unit. It involves a furnace and it involves, you know, connections to other areas of the house. I mean, is it operating in that capacity? So how do all those things work? And I look at the big equipment and appliances first with electrical connections, with light switches and stuff and outlets, because that's the very essence of even how you place your furniture in areas.

Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, you've moved in and you've, you, you know, your, your house is connected to all these utilities, right? Power, water, um, and where are those connections and where, how do all those things operate on a day-to-day basis? Like you said, um, you know, just learning your new thermostat. But then there's also all those connections create that long-term bigger picture of knowing where your water shutoff valve is. In case you have a leak, you have to be able to shut the water off on your house. Well, where is that? Well, operating your light switches is pretty easy, but where is your main electrical panel?

Correct.

In case you had to shut off all the entire power to the house, or if you also have gas, where's your gas meter? How would you shut the gas off to your house? Um, understanding the landscape, if it's a single-family home, of your house. Is it flat? Is it sloping up, down, left, right? And that has to do with Rain. Are your gutters clean? Right? How does your house handle heavy rains or heavy snows if you live in a snow climate? So, it's really kind of getting this overall assessment. I mean, frankly, we tell people you should take a home inventory because you could learn about this stuff just by walking around your house a couple times a day and figuring it out and storing it all up in here. In your brain. But candidly, right, taking photos of these things and storing them, we think HomeZada is a great tool. You don't obviously need to use HomeZada, but storing all that stuff so that it's basically one central place that you're starting to aggregate the knowledge over where all these things are becomes a huge sort of aspect of understanding how to operate it because it's operating it on a day-to-day basis because you're going to live and, and, you know, live in the house. But it's also understanding how it operates when The weather gets bad, whatever the weather is in your area of the world. Does it get super hot and humid? Does it get cold thunderstorms? What are the other climate risks around your house? Weather risks? What are the seasonality issues? All of those things gets into how am I going to operate my house throughout the 4 different seasons based on where your home's located.

Now you bring up good points. Like, so I was immediately going towards equipment. And connections to any kind of power source. You actually went into actually gutters and stuff, which is also really important because if your gutters are— you buy this new house, buy this home, it's new to you, and your gutters are clogged because nobody's ever cleaned them, that's going to cause some serious damage to your house. And so making even small investments into either your time or to hiring professionals to clean out those gutters or anything around the home. That is probably critical to even moving all your stuff inside the house.

Yeah. And as you were talking, I thought of one other thing. It's sort of like, how am I going to operate the house? Right. And a lot of that has to do with first-time homebuyers who moved into their first home for the first time. There's the what's your overall strategy? We're going to get into more of the maintenance a little bit, I guess, later in the podcast. But it's the strategy as it relates to finances, meaning If you hire people to do all these things, hopefully you've accounted for that into your budget. If you're going to do these DIY, well, guess what? You're probably going to be going to the home improvement retailer to start buying things that you didn't own before as a renter. A ladder, a pressure washer, a tool, a toolbox, right? With basic sort of tools kind of mentalities, you're probably making some minor investment into being able to do the DIY. If you're going to mow your own lawn, guess what? You're going to be buying a lawnmower.

Good point. To John's point, housewarming parties and/or get to know your neighbors because you might have to borrow some things.

Exactly.

In the interim. But return them.

Yes.

So, so yeah, so that's a good point. So when it comes to understanding all of that and how everything, where everything is, that's step one. And doing a home inventory can help with that. But the next thing is how to care for it. And we talked about briefly If you've got gutters that are clogged, you got to clean them. But then at the same time, how are you going to care for this entire home? Because let's face it, things need maintenance and you need to stay on top of it.

What? What? I thought it's the now what? I know. I thought I was just gonna have fun and it was gonna make me money over the long run.

Yeah, right. It still needs maintenance. And so to your point, You need to mow your lawn if you haven't gotten a service or the HOA doesn't take care of it. You need to, whether you do it yourself or someone else, doesn't matter. Whether you clean your gutters, whether you are cleaning your refrigerator coils, you know, everything under the sun needs care.

It's what I call—

Just like your body, it needs care.

It's the journey of learning what it takes to manage and maintain your home.

Correct.

And Beth, how did you learn that journey? Did you learn it? Did you know it day one when you moved in?

No, but I did kind of watch my parents.

Yep.

I kind of watched my parents and paid attention to all the things that they were doing around the house. And I understood some other maintenance because I was watching my friends who'd already been in some houses. And then I also have a lot of friends that are contractors. And so I understood a lot of how houses were built and what you need, what steps you need to do to take care of them just by watching. But I was very fortunate because my parents did care for their homes and my friends did too. And I understood the complexities of construction. And I think construction people fall into 2 camps. They either don't want to care for their homes at all because they're so busy doing construction all the time, or 2, they know how important it is to do maintenance, so they double down on maintenance. And they get in front of it before it's too late.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, um, I've used this analogy so many times, but it's appropriate, especially since we're doing first-time homeowners, right? Which is the analogy is you buy a car and the car blinks at you and tells you when to do maintenance.

Yes.

And there's one single owner's manual usually in the glove box. You buy a home, there's nothing that blinks at you. And there is no one single owner's manual. So a lot of people go through this journey of learning what it takes by talking to family, friends, maybe the real estate agent, the neighbor.

Mm-hmm.

Candidly, you— there obviously you can do a lot of, you know, web searches and AI searches and you're going to— what do I need to do to maintain my home? But really, my advice is create a calendar for these things because what you need to do to maintain your home is going to depend on the age and the size of your home, as well as its location, given sort of the weather and climate issues.

Yeah.

And you just— it's just a great suggestion to create some form of calendaring system to remind you of these, these things, because there's so much content out there, but it's not really personalized for your house and your conditions. It's just generic advice that you get from people. And Even your parents may not know what kind of HVAC unit you have, and they're on electric heat pump and you're on a split system with gas kind of mentality. So it's different.

Right.

So again, it's combining that, creating that inventory of all of the assets and utilities, but then also creating that maintenance calendar for you. You're going to save yourself a lot of time and money and hassle because maintenance falls into 2 categories. There's the preventative stuff that you need to do But then invariably, no matter how good you are, there's things that are going to sort of break and need fixing. And so you're going to have to deal with maintenance and repair tasks.

Yeah. And I, I'm a firm believer, the more you can get in front of it, the less likely you're spending on fix-it and repair out of the blue. You may have more awareness, and it may be reasonable for you to spend money, for instance, on someone from an HVAC company to come check your HVAC units twice a year so that they can identify how long your equipment will last and also make minor repairs to help it move forward. So I'm a firm believer in that. And if you can get in front of this and have an understanding of what you own, how it operates, and then what you need to do to care for it, you're ahead of the game. And to John's point, I am a firm believer in having it scheduled, which is part of the reason why we created HomeZada is because I got sick and tired of arguing over who's replacing the air filters. Like, this is the silliest thing to argue over. And I was like, oh, whatever, we'll put it in the system and then we'll do it. And that's the end of it. And so I don't have to remember when to change them. I don't have to tell John, yell at John when to change them. We just know. When they're getting changed, because Homsada is telling me— Homsada is my little nag. She's my little nag sometimes.

Yes. And I, I read a lot of industry research. They, they inter— a lot of people will interview first-time homeowners, and a lot of them have regret. And one of the top 3 regrets is, I didn't understand what it was going to take to manage and maintain my home, because they didn't know and they didn't budget their either time or their money to do this.

Correct.

In the process of when they decided to buy a home. And they're like, wow, I thought I was just going to move in and, like I said, tongue-in-cheek, party and hang out and not have to do anything. But, you know, the home does need ongoing care and maintenance, like you said.

Mm-hmm.

And there's a lot of uniqueness given the size, its age, location. Um, and so you can avoid the downstream financial pain by basically creating a system to sort of help you manage the preventative maintenance because it's the old, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Yes.

Which is code for, you know, spending $50 maintaining something is way cheaper than spending $1,000 to fix it or replace it.

Correct. And I've known people who purchase homes, did not realize the maintenance on it, and sold them. Because they didn't want to be in them anymore because they didn't realize the maintenance and the time and everything else, which is sad because sometimes they didn't get their down payments back and they didn't make any money on the house. So it's challenging.

One quick related but very important sidebar to sort of the maintenance and operating the home, right? You have to make sure that your home is operating safe and healthy.

Without a doubt.

Because House fires, gas, carbon monoxide, fire extinguishers, all of the, you know, all of these things are important to maintain how your home operates from a health perspective, right? Obviously trying to keep the air clean in your house, minimize mold growth.

Mm-hmm.

All of those things are incorporated into understanding what maintenance is required because some of the maintenance are safety-oriented because you wanna continue to make sure you live in a, in a safe home and, and your family knows how to Manage and maintain it. And if, if conditions got really bad, knew how to get out and all those kinds of things.

Correct. And you know what, you bring up a good point. We talk— we hear a lot about smart home technology and this, that, the other. And there are tools that can help out with some of this. But we're talking about the very basics in a lot of, in a lot of times to keep a home safe and healthy. It really is the basics of maintenance. It doesn't require smart home technology. It requires smart home brains to actually go and do the work and make it happen where able-bodied humans can do that. But that's what it, that's what it requires. It's not, it's not rocket science. It's not a lot going on, but it does require consistency and it does require awareness.

I have another huge tip that just popped into my head too.

Go for it.

So a first-time home buyer probably got a home inspection, and they think, oh, I got a home inspection, I'm covered, I know what's going on. But what most first-time homeowners don't realize is the home inspection, it was done as a static snapshot of the day the inspector came to visit your house.

Right.

And the inspector probably took pictures of the things that needed to get fixed. Or maybe potentially could be issues down the road. And hopefully maybe they got fixed during your closing process, but maybe not all of them did. And a lot of homeowners confuse a home inspection with ongoing preventative maintenance.

Correct. Good point.

I've already covered that in my closing. No, your, your, your inspection did not say you got to clean your gutters before heavy rains come. Your inspection did not say, right, you should change your air filters 3 or 4 times a year. Right. So home maintenance is different than a home inspection. And that is—

Correct.

Unfortunately, I've read that a lot of first-time homeowners don't understand the difference between the two. And just again, I'm saying inspection, one-time snapshot view of what your house would look like on that day. Well, guess what? 6 months later, when heavy rains hit, maybe something else becomes an issue. Because you didn't make the preventative maintenance aspects during the course of it, and your home inspector had no idea that that was the case because they didn't inspect your home when heavy rains hit.

Correct, correct. No, you bring up a good point. I can't believe— I'm sorry, I'm laughing at people who don't know. That was a shame. That was terrible of me. Um, only because, like I said, my experience is different as I grew up with all these contractors and people in real estate and stuff. But yeah, a home inspection Is not, does not mean that the house is even perfect.

Mm-hmm.

It means that if you didn't read the inspection, you may not see that there were some things that needed to be taken care of as well. And that also goes back to another podcast we talked about. When you talk with a real estate agent, make sure you're with somebody who's competent that also understands that when you get an inspection, you need to review it together 'cause it's part of your negotiations. When you're buying a house. But you are correct, if you get a home inspection and you take the house as is, this is a great, uh, conversation that leads to the next phase of this conversation about what to do now that you're in a home. When you get an inspection and you take the house as is based on the inspection that you have, there may be things in the inspection that are your priority and prior to prioritized Activities or projects you need to take care of in order to repair first, or to replace first, or something. And that's part that could be part of your negotiation. But we now we've got some maintenance. We're doing this maintenance. We can talk about maintenance all day, but we're not going to for this conversation. We've got other podcasts about that. But we also want to talk about now that you're in this home, you you've Got your maintenance schedule all set up. Now you need to start prioritizing all of your projects. And a lot of people automatically, when they move into a home, and I've been guilty of this, you go into a home and you're like, oh, I can't wait to personalize it. I can't wait for my own draperies, my own furniture, my own Chopskis, my own housewares inside my kitchen, my kitchen furniture.

Patio furniture, patio tools, all the stuff to throw that cool party.

Yes. Everything. Can't wait. But here's the thing: the kegerator. Oftentimes not the kegerator. Oftentimes when you are in this position, you need to also evaluate the equipment and the appliances and everything else. That's why we think the first step to before moving into your home, like truly moving in, is to understand your home, to to understand how it operates. To understand the equipment and the structure of the property prior to adding furnishings and everything else in there, and then identifying your maintenance calendar. But more importantly, go back to that inspection and determine what has been repaired based on the inspection prior to closing and what has not. And some of those areas may be your first set of projects that you need to take care of, and it may be. is something as simple as repairing a door handle. It could be something as that, or it could be something as big as a roof. So, John, I know you had something else to say.

Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head. Like, your inspection, hopefully some of them got resolved, but an inspection may be, hey, this may be a cause for future concern, is what it sort of says in the inspection report. And while you're trying to close the house, you're sort of like, okay, that may be concern. I don't have to do anything and fix it. And you forget about it. But that may be a concern, maybe something that you, as part of that assessment of your house, you know, take photos of all these things. Granted, we have AI now. AI can be processed to even sort of help you troubleshoot all these sort of things, potentially troubleshoot all them things. But that segues into projects like you said, which may be, okay, you bought a home that's 17 years old. Your inspection said, hey, you might have 2 to 3 years left on your HVAC units. Well, now you know that maybe scheduling somebody service-wise is going to be more of a bigger priority because you don't want to replace it. Or if you knew that going in, like start to forecast when you're going to potentially replace it. Because the other thing that a lot of first-time homeowners get over budget on— one, we talked about you just over-furnish the homes.

Yes.

Because your first home. But let's assume that the furniture budget came out of somewhere else. But it's like, oh, you've ignored the caution that came on the inspection report because you really want to rip up all the carpets and put in new hardwood floors in certain rooms, or the appliances are a little bit older and you really walked into the retail store and you like that cool appliance. So you could easily get over budget on what I call the lifestyle projects.

Totally.

The aesthetics of the thing, and you're ignoring the systems— HVAC, electrical, Roofing, windows, insulation type projects, which is, again, we're huge proponents of planning. It's a great way to just sort of have a system to sort of like, okay, list out all your lifestyle projects that you want, but list out all the sort of infrastructure things that could be in place, and then start create yourself some sort of like cash flow plan. Because again, back to financial reality, you probably can't do it all at once. Otherwise, you're going to get overextended. So start to think about how am I going to prioritize which projects I want to do this year, next year, 3 years from now, etc.?

Yeah. And plan accordingly. I mean, to your point, plan accordingly and understand that something unexpected you may— to John's point about the HVAC equipment, you may have 3 years left on this HVAC equipment and then in year 2 it breaks. And generally, this is the sad part. For whatever reason, HVAC equipment always breaks when you need it the most. Either it when it's super cold or when it's super hot, and it's the strangest thing. But it does happen. But maybe because they're getting taxed during those periods of time, and so you need to schedule this. And so those things are unforeseen. But make sure you prioritize your projects and understand. Where they all reside will help you better identify what's truly, truly important. I mean, and health and safety is critical when living in a house. I'll tell you that full stop. But then that brings us, John, because we've kind of glossed over and talked briefly about projects, 'cause also something we could talk about forever because there's so many different kinds of projects, whether it's repairs, whether it's, design element projects, furniture changes, etc., to full-on remodels, you know, to changing everything. And that's extremely costly. And that's for somebody— if you are buying a brand new house and you want to flip it, then you are making a different investment into that house. And we're going to talk about that another time. But when you get into your home, it's also important to understand your overall finances. It's easy to think, okay, I bought this home, I've got a mortgage, I've got insurance, and I've got property taxes. But a lot of people tend to forget that they may have utility bills or some sort of network bills for your TV or what have you. You may even have water bills included in the utility, electric, gas, etc., and you may have them together or separate. Whatever. You may also have—

Garbage bills, sewer bills.

Yeah, garbage bills. I totally forgot about those. Garbage and sewer. And you may have, um, in your area, you may even have pest control of some sort. I mean, there's a lot. If you decided you wanted to buy a house because maybe you're that person that can afford to buy, um, a home with a small home with a pool— that's what you did, John. You bought a home, first home with a pool. That pool needs care.

Yes.

So you may not have the time to do it or the experience, so you may need to hire somebody, even if it's temporary. So now you've got another expense, and then that's the property itself. But then when you start adding maintenance tasks, projects, and you start adding other elements of living on your own, all of a sudden these expenses to manage your home can get out of control if you're not taking care of things. And to what To John's point, and I think we've got a whole nother podcast on that, the tools that you need moving into your house as a first-time homeowner is, um, you're going to need to invest in tools. If you do not hire— have a landscaper, but you decided to buy a house with grass and you have an HOA and your HOA isn't mowing it, your neighbors are not going to be happy if you're not mowing that lawn.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

And so you're gonna have to get A lawnmower.

I'm laughing because I always want to go to the home improvement retailer and buy some new tool. And you're like, why? You don't need that. Why do you need that?

No, I don't. I don't need more tools in my house. I got enough. And so, and to the point is, you may need a ladder in your home. You know, by the way, depending on the height ceilings inside, outside, you may need different sizes.

Correct.

Which is You don't have to buy them all at once. You can buy them little by little. You can borrow from your neighbors. You can borrow from your family temporarily. Um, are you gonna get a pressure washer? Do you need one? Can you rent one? Can you borrow one?

Back to the purpose of the housewarming party.

Correct. Going back to the purpose of the housewarming party. But I mean, simple, um, uh, screwdrivers and a basic toolkit is something that can benefit you even in your home. You know, just simply simple repairs in that capacity, adding a repairing a doorknob with a screwdriver or something. I mean, like those things are important. We're not telling you have to be a plumber. We're not telling you have to be an electrician. But all of a sudden, moving into a house is expensive, and we're not telling you not to do it. We're telling you to. We're recommending to you, not even telling. We're recommending to you that you take it in phases. And it's little steps, one by one by one. And when you're asking for Christmas gifts, you might be asking for a brand new ladder or some other aspect of a brand new toolkit or an electric— okay, I can't even think of it— an electric screwdriver. You might be asking for everything in that capacity. So just have fun with it and Take it as it comes. Anything else to add, John?

I'm just— yeah, it's the whole total cost of ownership. Yeah, essentially what you're driving at. And there might be a lot. Well, what I could add is there— everything's interrelated, right? You talked about your utility bills. Well, if your home is not operating efficiently because your dryer is taking too long to dry the clothes and your Appliances are working harder than they need to, then your utility bills could be going up, right?

Mm-hmm.

If you've got an irrigation system and you're forgetting to shut off the irrigation during winter, well then you're, and you're on a water meter, you're spending more money on water than you need to. So how to own and operate the home has an impact in those ongoing expenses. So back to why it's important to create that initial sort of maintenance plan, you can keep those sets of expenses down. It's the $50 maintenance avoids the $1,000 fix-it. But if you still have to do the $1,000 fix-it, then that has to be taken into account versus the $5,000 remodel. So it's really essentially understanding that your total cost of ownership is what I call the big property expenses, which most people get mortgage, insurance, and property tax.

Mm-hmm.

Then there's the ongoing things that are just monthly bills, utilities, And then there's the maintenance and prevent— maintenance and repair. And then there's any home remodel projects. And the last one is some of these things are DIY versus hire somebody.

Correct.

Right. If I, if I can learn how to manage my own pool, then I'm going to save money versus hiring a pool service. If I'm willing to mow my own lawns and landscape my house and prune my trees, I'm minimizing those costs. But welcome to reality. Less time going out and golfing and going to the sporting events and more time spending weekends doing stuff at your house, candidly. So there's that other word of trade-off. Everything is a trade-off, right? And it's trying to understand the trade-offs of managing your total cost of ownership versus your lifestyle. And do you have the financial means? Or even if you have the means, maybe you still want to save the money because you want to go on that vacation. All of these things are interrelated. Beth and I are huge proponents over just having a plan and a system to kind of manage all these things is going to keep you as a great, smarter homeowner, hence the name of our podcast.

Yeah. And you're going to be a smarter homeowner about your specific home or homes. And that's going to be important because your home is different than everybody else's. And by the way, as part of this journey, Who cares what everybody else is doing? Who cares what your friends are doing? Who cares what, um, your neighbors are doing? What have you. Do what suits you in your particular home and understand that caring for it is something we can all do with our homes. But you don't need to be worrying about furnishing your house all at once or changing it up all at once because you think that's the, the right thing to do because of whatever someone else has said. In all honesty, John and I are firm believers. We have major, a major project a year. That's it. And a major project can be $5,000. It can be $10,000. It could be $2,000. It could be whatever. But I actually had to walk away from a particular project this year because a repair, because I had already spent my budget this year on something else. And I now have it scheduled for next year. So, okay, great. So the top of the food chain next year, but It's not happening this year.

Yes. So homeownership can be amazing, is amazing and completely fun. And meeting your neighbors and enjoying and having family and friends over. And whether it's you're into cooking or sporting events, building out your man cave, whatever, right? It's all good. It's just so much what I call mental time is spent thinking on the finances of how to actually buy your first home, that now that you've achieved that milestone, your brain tends to shut off and focus on the lifestyle effects over, oh my God, I'm in my first home, this is awesome, this is cool, that you forget to think about the financial aspects of managing your home moving forward.

Right.

Because it is both an asset, hopefully you're tracking the asset value and how much equity you have, but it's also an expense. And you need to sort of manage and track all these different categories of expense.

Totally. I mean, that's the bulk of it. So with this podcast, we hope we helped you understand a little bit more of how to operate your house. I'm gonna look at my notes. How to operate your house, where everything is, what type of connections and details you have about your house, how to care for it and maintain it. Prioritizing your projects based on whatever is happening in your particular house, and then the overall cost and how to manage all of that as well. But as you heard, John and I are firm believers of preparation. The more you can prep— the unexpected will happen, but the more you can prep and the more you can understand more about your house, the more intelligent you become. And you are a smarter homeowner about things About your homes, so we thank you for being here. Anything else, John, that you want to add?

Nope. Perfect summary.

Oh, perfect. So thank you so much for being here. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. If you think others could benefit from this, please share this with them, and we want to help as many people be the best and smartest homeowners they can be, and it's specific to them. So please join us again for another episode of Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. This is Beth and John signing out. Have a great day.

Thank you for listening to the Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast. Visit beasmarterhomeowner.com to sign up for our newsletter and find out more about software to help you save time, save money, and manage your home.