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It is a truism of personal finance that one's home is one's first and best investment. This is certainly not always the case, but is valid enough that the maxim remains with us, and is likely to continue to, so long as there are tax benefits in typical real estate ownership and the bottom does not fall out of this market.
But houses tend to wear out and must be properly maintained or even improved to retain good value and to add to it at least consistent with the upward march of inflation. Critical issues for a real estate owner, then, are when, how, and how much to repair and renovate the investment we often also call home.
Ordinary maintenance or repairs, things like regularly painting the exterior of the property, putting in new doorknobs or windows when they wear out or become broken, replacing deteriorating wood, getting or installing a new roof (as we needed to do late last month), replacing worn out electrical wiring, assuring the heating/air conditioning system is kept in good working order, and so on, ought to be done routinely, just as needed, to keep up the appearance and functionality of one's place. If something is let go, such as repairing or replacing bad siding, in fairly short order one may be looking at a much larger repair or replacement bill.
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