Juli Adelman of Northeast Portland should be feeling confident about homeownership by now. Since remodeling a fixer-upper 16 years ago, she’s sold each of her past three properties at a profit, moving her up the real estate ladder.
A year ago, she purchased a century-old house in her goal neighborhood: Beaumont-Wilshire. Despite her time-tested DIY repair skills and her contractor father’s assurance she wasn’t buying a money pit, Adelman still feels nervous.
She wonders: What costly mystery may be ahead?
“It’s a totally sound investment and I’ve been pretty lucky at this so far,” she said, “but it’s still kind of a gamble. What if the sewer goes sideways?”
She’s not alone in having home repair fear.
A survey by the Seattle-based real estate marketplace Zillow found 75{889f11dd78af44195e99a8a45806d98ad1fa7f272d11f4c6d22b45f5e75dcb8c} of pandemic-era home buyerswho battled record-low inventory, rapidly escalating prices and brutal bidding wars, wish they had done things differently.
Many
