Money

What monthly costs come with owning a home, beyond the bond?

Budget for rates or levies, home insurance, bond life cover, water and electricity, and a maintenance fund. On a R750 000 home that is commonly R1 500 to R2 500 a month on top of the bond repayment.

This is the question nobody asks until they have already moved in, and it is the one that catches good buyers out. Your bond repayment is the biggest monthly cost of owning a home, but it is not the only one. Budget for it properly and ownership feels comfortable. Budget only for the bond and the first year is stressful.

Rates, or levies

If you own a freestanding house, you pay municipal rates, which is a tax based on the municipal value of your property. If you own a unit in a complex or estate, you pay a levy to the body corporate instead, which covers the security, the garden, the common areas and the building insurance.

Levies vary enormously depending on what the complex offers. A gate and a garden is one number. Manned security, a pool and a clubhouse is quite another. Ask for the exact figure before you make an offer, and ask whether a special levy is coming, because those are one-off charges the body corporate can raise for big repairs.

Home insurance and bond cover

• Buildings insurance covers the structure itself. Your bank requires it before registering the bond. In a complex it is usually inside your levy already.
• Bond life cover settles the outstanding bond if you die. Most banks require some form of it, and you are free to use your own insurer rather than the bank's, which is often cheaper.
• Household contents cover is optional and covers your things rather than the building. Worth having, easy to forget.

Water and electricity

If you are moving out of a room or a flat where utilities were included, this is the line item that surprises people most. You are now paying for a whole house. A solar geyser, which many new developments include as standard, makes a real difference here, because water heating is usually the largest single slice of a household electricity bill.

The maintenance fund nobody sets up

When you rent, a broken geyser is someone else's problem. When you own, it is yours, and geysers cost real money. A sensible habit is to put aside a small amount every month from the day you move in, so that the first thing to break is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

New builds are gentler here for the first few years, and they come with an NHBRC warranty covering structural defects. Older homes need a bigger fund, which is part of the honest trade-off between the two.

Putting a number on it

As a working figure, budget R1 500 to R2 500 a month on top of your bond for a home around R750 000, depending on whether you are in a complex and how much security you are paying for. It is a range rather than a number because levies and municipal rates differ so much between areas, and we would rather give you a range you can trust than a single figure that is wrong for your street.

Ask us for the actual rates or levy on any specific listing. We will get you the real figure before you make an offer, not after.

Why this matters before you buy

The bank checks whether you can afford the bond. It does not check whether you can afford the life around the bond. That part is on you, and it is the difference between a home that feels like progress and one that feels like pressure. Work out the full monthly figure first, then go looking. It is a duller way to start and a much better way to finish.