5 Home-Buying Lessons from ‘The Money Pit’

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“Here lies Walter Fielding. He bought a house, and it killed him.” 

Spend enough time thinking about personal finance (and writing about it), and soon enough, you’ll start finding inspiration everywhere, including movies. The 1986 movie The Money Pit stars Tom Hanks and Shelley Long as Walter Fielding and Anna Crowley, and it’s a comedic romp about a couple who get in way over their heads on a home purchase in a predictable but hilarious way.

This movie may be 37 years old, but it still offers a lot of prescient advice worth taking if you’re looking to get a mortgage and become a homeowner. Here’s what to watch out for when you buy a home, so you can avoid falling through your own second floor and being ripped off by contractors.

1. It’s never a good idea to buy a home in a hurry

In The Money Pit, Walter and Anna have to find a new place to live unexpectedly when Anna’s ex-husband returns to his apartment (where they’ve been living) with no notice. Since they live in New York City, the couple face an uphill climb to find an apartment to rent, so instead, they consider buying a house.

This is a far from ideal situation in which to buy. Ideally, if owning a home is part of your plan, it should be far enough down the road that you have time to save money for a down payment and get your credit score in good shape. You should also take the time to vet mortgage lenders and get the best interest rate possible to avoid paying more than you have to for a house.

2. If the house seems underpriced, there’s a reason why

The home that Walter and Anna buy is a million-dollar property that’s been priced to move at $200,000. This is a bargain for a mansion just an hour outside New York City (while New York has some lovely affordable cities, they are all quite far away from NYC).

The seller has a sob story for the couple; her husband has been arrested and she needs to make a chunk of cash quickly on the sale. Walter and Anna don’t visit the home for long enough to discover anything wrong with it, and the story offered by the seller sounds legitimate enough. You may encounter a homeowner who needs to sell in a hurry (say, for a job relocation) and is willing to take less money for the property than seems logical. But if you’ve got your eye on a house that is very underpriced, be suspicious.

3. Never waive a home inspection

Walter and Anna don’t get the home inspected, and as soon as they start moving in, problems begin to crop up. The grand staircase completely falls apart and collapses, the front door’s frame is insufficient to hold the door in place, and eventually the bathtub even falls through the second floor down into the first.

If you’re buying a home, never waive the inspection contingency. Even if the inspection turns up expensive problems with the home you want to buy, and you elect to buy it anyway, at least you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into. And you’ll have the chance to start putting money in your savings account for the eventual repairs.

4. Don’t borrow money to buy a house

Walter is an entertainment lawyer, and borrows $200,000 from one of his clients, a teenage pop star, to cover his initial costs. The movie doesn’t discuss how Walter covers subsequent expenses, such as the many, many contractors who come to work on the house.

This is a movie, of course, but if you can’t cover the down payment yourself (or don’t have access to gift funds from friends or family), don’t borrow the money for it. There are a lot of rules in place to ensure that money you didn’t earn and are using for a home purchase really is a gift and not a loan. A mortgage lender is unlikely to approve you for a mortgage with a borrowed down payment, as repaying that loan could impact your ability to repay the mortgage.

5. Get references for contractors you want to hire

Once Walter and Anna discover the terrible condition of their new home, they hire contractors, including a pair of brothers who are a carpenter and a plumber, to oversee the work on it. The contractors prove to be unreliable, and work that was promised to take “two weeks” ends up taking months, and subcontractors completely gut the house in the process.

If you’re going to buy a fixer-upper home and aren’t qualified to do the work yourself, you’ll have to hire contractors. It’s a good idea to shop around for quotes on the work and see if you can speak to others who’ve worked with the contractor you want to hire. If the contractor seems reluctant to give you names of satisfied customers, that’s your sign to hire someone else.

Ultimately, The Money Pit has a happy ending, but if you buy a money pit of your very own, your finances may not survive. If homeownership is in your future, apply the lessons above to save money and find happiness in your new home.

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