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Surprise! You need a new roof
Your dream house may cost more to live in than you expected.
December 23, 2003: 3:24 PM EST
By Jean Chatzky, MONEY magazine editor-at-large

NEW YORK (Money magazine) - A $70,000 surprise. That's what my parents got this past fall, in the form of a termite infestation that ate away the inside of three interior walls from the basement to the third floor.

"I'm shocked the bathtub didn't fall through the ceiling," the contractor told my folks. As Jeanne Salvatore of the Insurance Information Institute explained to me, this put them in a bad spot. Termites, along with birds, vermin, rodents and other insects, are never covered under a homeowners policy. But a bathtub that cratered due to a fire would have been.

Granted, this is an unusual example. Salvatore said she couldn't remember the last time she'd been asked about termites. But I've long believed that one of the biggest financial difficulties of being a homeowner is that while it's pretty simple to wrap your brain around your mortgage payment, taxes and insurance, the question of what it costs to actually live in your house is much more complicated.

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.