Pool owners (how much, buying a house, landscaping)

[pjslad]

We have begun looking to by a house and saw one with a nice pool - I can see the pros in having one (swimming year round!) but what are the cons? How much daily / weekly maintenance is there - expense and so on...

thanks

[skylinet]

I've always been told, pools and boats are always better to have a friend with one...
Do you see yourself using it a lot? If not it might be better to find a community that has a pool that way you don't have to worry about the maintenance.
Monthly maintenance from what I've heard from my clients with pools is around 50-100 a month. You also have to figure in possible extra cost if the pump breaks, etc.
If you are dead set on having a pool than buying a house with a pool usually adds roughly 10-15,000 on to the value where as buying one without one and adding a pool you are looking at 30k plus. So you will save a considerable amount of money to buy with a pool vs adding a pool on. On the flip side you will cut about 60-70 percent of homes out of your search.

[Bobstar]

If you have kids, factoring in saftey, etc., get a pool. We use ours a lot. I clean it once a week - no big deal.

[TriMT7]

I have a pool guy --- $70/month, and he takes care of everything. Filter (about $100.00) needs to be repalced once a yearish it seems. If you are not as lazy as I am, I've been told it would take about an hour per week to vaccuum, skim and do the chemicals.

In the summer months, I use mine a LOT, almost every day it seems. In the winter, it just looks nice, since my pool is not heated I do not go in it at that time.

[pjslad]

Thanks for the reply's - I do have kids and they use the community pool daily...more than I do but if there were one right in the backyard...

we'll see, we're house hunting this weekend

[Momma_bear]

My husband does our pool. It is not much work. We have a Barracuda automatic pool vacuum (around $300) so we don't have to vacuum. My husband cleans the filter once every few months and it does not need to be replaced annually. We skim the pool whenever it needs it. That really depends on the landscaping that you have around the house.

My husband and I do the chemicals on our own. In the summer it needs about a gallon of chlorine a week. In the winter, less. Other than that there is not much to maintaining a pool.

If you want a pool it is much cheaper to buy a house with one already installed than to put one in.