Home Buying Heads-Up: The Game is Heating Up

Real Estate is picking up. But this blog is not about that. It's about the cost to heat your home.

The cost to heating a home can be very costly. Especially in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where the temperatures can drop to negative figures for days on end during the winter. So if you're looking to buy real estate in Steamboat Springs, pay special attention to how the home is heated. This issue is often overlooked, but you can afford more home if it's heated with natural gas.  Given the glut of natural gas these days, it's matters even more.  If the home you're looking to buy is heated with natural gas, your heating cost will be a lot lower then if it's heated with oil, propane or electricity.

Cost per month of heating a home:

•  Propane  = $226 per month

•  Natural gas = $79 per month

If you were buying a home today, the cost of heating that home is critical to what you can afford. Taking in the difference from heating with oil and heating a home with natural gas, the difference is huge.

•      If you bought a home with natural gas heat you could buy a home for $300,000.
•      If you bought a home with heating oil heat you could buy a home for $277,000.

The breakdown:

$300,000 = $1,922 Mortgage + $79 gas heat = $2,001

$277,000 = $1,775 Mortgage + $226 propane heat = $2,001 

Now this glut or natural gas might not last. It's thought that oil companies will just drill less to slow the supplies of natural gas. This again will cause supplies to lower and natural gas prices to go up. But even if this happens, the cost to heat a home with natural gas will almost always be cheaper then other fuels.  Read another blog about heating cost in Steamboat here. 

And I can't let you go without a video. Life in Steamboat during the winter. Cold weather has it's perks.

—For more information on buying real estate or questions regarding Steamboat Springs real estate  in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, feel free to call Charlie at 970-846-6435 or write me an email at: charlie@steamboatsmyhome.com

Thanks,

Charlie