Good reminder about plumbing—been there myself, unfortunately. Another tip:
- Don't forget to factor in escrow cushion for unexpected appliance replacements. HVAC systems or water heaters can go suddenly, and they're rarely cheap to fix...trust me on that one.
Had my HVAC go out mid-July a couple years back... talk about timing. Learned the hard way to pad the escrow cushion a little extra—saved me from another headache when the dishwasher quit unexpectedly last winter. Always better safe than sorry, right?
Yeah, padding the escrow cushion is a smart move. I used to keep mine pretty thin, figuring I'd just deal with stuff as it came up... until my water heater decided to flood the basement on a holiday weekend. Lesson learned, haha. Now I keep a bit extra tucked away—peace of mind is worth way more than the few bucks in interest I'd earn otherwise.
I learned that lesson the hard way too. Used to think escrow cushions were just banks holding extra cash unnecessarily. Then a storm blew off part of my roof—insurance covered most of it, but the deductible wasn't fun to scrape together last minute. Now I'm all about having a solid escrow buffer:
- Covers unexpected repairs smoothly.
- Prevents scrambling for cash under pressure.
- Helps keep credit utilization low by avoiding emergency credit card use.
Definitely beats stressing out and watching your credit score dip because of surprise expenses...
Same here, I used to roll my eyes at escrow accounts until our water heater died two months after moving in. The buffer saved us from panic-mode borrowing...lesson learned the hard way, I guess.
