[themeiguoren]

I’ve found 1% to be a wild overestimate on required home repairs if you DIY. 3% is crazy, that’s half a mortgage. On my $500k home I’ve spent only ~$3k total on necessary maintenance over 5 years (0.1%/yr), and that includes resealing a leaking flat roof, some furnace repairs, a new dishwasher, some electrical that went bad, cabinets that came off the wall, rotting fence posts, and a separate section of fence that fell down. Insurance is always there for true catastrophes like a tree falling on you or flooding.

But it’s also a small home in an urban area, so more expensive to its size than most. My take on the rule would be to save your square footage in dollars each year.

Now, I’ve spent a lot more that that on the house, but the rest have been cosmetic or quality of life upgrades. I struggle to think of any single realistic necessary repair that would cost more than $2k in materials to do myself.