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I don't live in one of these cities, but I've definitely noticed these hidden costs where I live. We manage by living in a home that is well below what we could afford and working to reduce our energy usage.

I don’t mean to be mean, but this is a stupid article. How is property tax a “hidden” or “unexpected” cost? Or utilities? If people don’t understand that they have to pay property tax and are buying a home….we’re all in a lot of trouble!

There definitely are lot of hidden costs of home ownership, but not taxes and utilities.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I'm Canadian, so not on the list but the way we keep costs down is because of my DH! He is VERY handy and does everything, we only pay for materials, and even then he can make some of it (used our trees to make our log deck). If it weren't for him we would have had to pay a lot in labour for the things he's done, especially because we bought a fixer-upper.

I've lived in the suburbs of two of the cities. In addition to the hidden costs, both cities have high average home value.

I actually thought NYC would be #1 on this list and was surprised to see not make it on this list. I'm thinking maybe more people rent than own in NYC. Maybe that's why.

I am a bit disappointed that Boston is #1 since I'll probably start job hunting in Boston when we are ready to move back east. Though, I doubt I'll be able to afford a home in Boston, I'll probably live in the suburbs.

@catlady: yeah, I wouldn't consider these hidden as well as property taxes were something we looked at the same time as looking at new homes

@yoursilverlining: Yes. I would say the biggest "hidden cost" for us had been the exterior and land for us. Who knew tree maintenance could cost so much and even be an issue!

@bluestriped bee: yup, this list is meaningless without NY hahaha. Westchester has the highest property taxes in the country! But again, these are things people know going in. What the article doesn't bother to mention are things like the impact of transfer taxes for city and state, mansion tax etc can have on your closing costs. Closing costs in NYC on my 2br/2bth came to $50,000!!!!!

Yup! #1! Although I live south west of the highest areas listed in the article (Boston/Cambridge/Newton... a weird grouping since they're all separate cities...) There are absolutely affordable options outside the city. My town is not... but we're paying high property taxes for the school system and community, and proximity to the city for a decent commute.

I agree that these things are not hidden costs. I would say things like landscaping costs would qualify as hidden though, we do most of the work ourselves but mulch and flowers and water adds up quickly! Snow removal is a pain too, it is either expensive in dollars or expensive in time and effort.

Some places you have to pay extra for trash, bulk trash or recycling, many places don't have composting or wood chipping services included etc. Our taxes are high but when all of these things and more are rolled in I feel like we have fewer hidden costs than most people.

@hellobeeboston: tree maintenance, ugh. We have a 60+ foot pine tree in our front yard that not only needs to be pruned every couple years so it doesn't drop a branch on a passer-by, but it also spits pinecones and pine needles and these weird little red puffy things so we're cleaning up after it year-round. Obviously we knew the tree was there but we never thought (and our realtor never warned us) about what a PITA it would be. It doesn't cost us in money to clean up after it (but DH is always mentioning hiring someone to clean the gutters so he doesn't have to go up and do it) but it takes soooo much time. Pruning costs a ton, though.

Anyway, I agree with everyone who says taxes and utilities, and even closing costs IMO, are not hidden costs. If you don't account for those when you buy a house, that's really your own fault. I will say that additional tax levies can be pretty unwelcome (our city passes them ALL THE TIME and seeing the effect on our tax bill pretty much sucks) but even with that, you have to assume taxes will go up over time. Our hidden costs have been things like when a spring on our garage door broke and when we tried to get it fixed, found out parts for the door are no longer manufactured. We managed to find a salvaged spring so we didn't have to replace the whole door YET, but now there are literally no replacement parts left on the west coast so next time anything goes wrong, the whole thing will have to be replaced. And it's a non-standard size so it has to be custom-made. $$$. Or when our basement got infested by ants because who knew that they apparently love the sandy soil in our area. That was fun. So now we've added an annual visit from the exterminator to our budget. Even little things that aren't strictly necessary, like some nice colorful flowers to brighten up the front yard, add up fast. Sigh.

We just bought a house in the suburbs of one of the areas. But we knew we were buying an an expensive area, and we knew what the property taxes were. I think this article could have focused on maintenance costs to be more interesting. We bought a larger home than we planned so that is something I worry about a little even though the price was right. You should see the estimates we just got from fence companies. No wonder the previous owners had 3 kids, 3 dogs and no fence.

@808love: @808love: it is a tax you pay to transfer home ownership from someone else to yourself. In NYC, you pay state transfer tax and then city transfer tax and then mortgage tax and then depending on the cost of the property there is mansion tax. These are completely separate from your closing costs. Ridiculous. The rules about who pays what between buyer and seller also seem to be forever shifting.

Like a few others, we are right in the #1 city. But those things weren't hidden. Things that were more surprising were having to replace our water heater almost right away (we didn't realize they usually only last about ten years and our building is ten years old). And living in a medium sized condo building there are assessments for repairs to the property- luckily the previous owner had just paid a big one.

Umm.. So I've owned inNYC and Philadelphia and am totally shocked philly made the list and NYC didnt. This is kind of a stupid article because these costs are definitely not hidden and you would only overlook them if you're a first time home buyer.
Actually the main reason we moved to the philly suburbs instead of the nyc burbs was because of taxes. We could have afforded a decenthouse.. But not the $30k per year in taxes. And we never even bothered trying to hire contractors in nyc - we did everything ourselves- because the ones that were willing to come into manhattan charged several k just to cross a bridge.
But yeah, like others we bought a house below our budget that needed no work. This way on months when we pay the plumber and electrician more than our mortgage it isn't such a big deal.

@plantains: I agree landscaping isn't something that was hidden and we had an idea of how much that would cost. It was more the specific costs related to the trees and particular sprinkler systems we had that caught us off guard. But buying a home under our budget helps with extra costs like that.

What was nice in our closing is that there was such a bidding war among the lenders we had fighting each other, we got a $1500 credit from the lender towards closing and the other bank actually offered to beat it by $200, but by that point we were in so deep with the first lender we just rolled with it. I have no idea how we would manage a $50K transfer tax bill - we paid like $2500 total for our closing costs!

@gingerbebe: 2500!!!!! Wow, that is kind of amazing! I agree though, best to buy less than you can afford and set some money aside every month for maintenance costs.