The paint on Mrs. Gable’s Victorian peels a little more each year. She’s in her seventies, still on the ladder, touching it up herself. This year, though, she’s stopped. The numbers are too high.
Zillow and Thumbtack just released a report. They crunched the data: Home maintenance costs are now averaging $15,679 annually. That’s up. Significantly.
It’s rising at 4.7% per year. Inflation, a persistent ache, is 3.8%. Household incomes? Even less. The gap widens.
I walked the streets of her neighborhood last week. It’s a blue state, leafy and expensive. The kind of place where a small, unassuming tree in the front yard can trigger a permitting process. A process that comes with a fee. And inspections. And delays.
A recent Fox Business article highlighted the trend. It’s not just the materials. It’s the hidden costs. The permits, the regulations, the specialized labor often required by local codes. These are the things that disproportionately affect homeowners in certain areas.
Consider the new solar panel mandate. Great in theory. But the installation? The permits? The specialized electrician? All adding up. One homeowner in Marin County, California, posted on a local forum that the permitting alone took six months, and the fees were more than the panels themselves.
“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” a local contractor told me, shaking his head. “A new regulation here, a new inspection there. It all adds up.” He asked not to be named, fearing repercussions from the local authorities.
The problem isn’t just the dollar amount. It’s the erosion of control. The feeling of being squeezed. The slow, relentless pressure on the American dream.
It’s not just blue states, of course. But the study, and my own observations, suggest a pattern. Policies, well-intentioned or not, are quietly pricing people out.
The numbers from Zillow and Thumbtack tell a story. A story of rising costs. A story of homeowners struggling to keep up. A story that’s playing out, block by block, across the country.
