FrontDoor.com

There's a lot of talk these days about houses being underwater. But arguably, nobody feels like that more than the owner of a home with a swimming pool.

Sure, we know the recession has sent many houses "underwater," where the mortgage is more than what the property is actually worth. But it also has made plenty of homeowners with backyard swimming holes long for their own bailout from their pool plight.

While the economic costs of maintaining a pool have long been a concern for homeowners, it's a reality that's especially been prevalent during the recession. It's also something that anyone intoxicated with the summer season and currently pondering an outdoor pool should consider before installing one or purchasing a house with one. Many a homeowner has bought into the idea of having a pool and come to regret it.

"My husband and toddler enjoy going in the pool," concedes Charlane Haugsven, a mother of two in Seattle, "but we hate maintaining it. It's a tremendous amount of work and is very expensive to get the chemicals just right. It actually cost us more to do everything ourselves than to hire someone to maintain it."

In fact, Haugsven says that they were spending $100 a month until they found a company willing to do the maintenance for $50 a month. It's those types of stories that one hears that cause someone like Julie Russell, a Quincy, Mass., resident who just sold her home and is in the market for a new one, to not even entertain the idea of having a swimming pool in her backyard.

"When I look through the MLS listings and see a pool listed on the property, it's something that I do not desire," says Russell, adding: "In fact, I will look at properties before I go see one listed with a pool."

Those maintenance costs

Simone St. Clare, 48, is a real estate broker in the San Francisco area and when clients of hers beg out of seeing a home with a swimming pool, she doesn't argue their points. She understands. St. Clare rues the day she decided to become a pool owner.

Her 16-year-old son used to "live" in the pool, she says, but now, not so much. Meanwhile, her 25-year-old daughter visits and uses the pool when she can. And while there's no question that St. Clare has enjoyed her pool for the last few years and still sometimes does, it frustrates her every time she thinks about her monthly budget.

"Little did I know that the pool filter needs to run every day, rain or shine, winter or summer," laments St. Clare. "During the summer, the suggested time is six to seven hours a day. There's a little bit of respite in winter -- only two to three hours a day. Do you have any idea how much that adds to my electric bill every month? It's huge!"

How huge? St. Clare figures she pays $95 extra on her electric bill from June through October and then maybe $30 a month from November through May.

But there's more than just the utility expense. St. Clare points out that the pool has added costs to her homeowner's insurance, and when the pool parts like the filter and motor wear out, she has to replace them. Since fooling with the chemicals isn't practical, she pays for a pool service ($130 a month). Ideally, she would heat the pool with solar panels, but she says that's not an option "with our bankrupt state not being able to participate in tax credits for solar installation."

She also says that her water costs are high as well, since there's replenishing the evaporating water, and with California in a drought, her water company just sent out letters stating that any water use over 85 percent of the homeowner's past three-year average consumption will be penalized at a high cost.

Every time St. Clare sees water going down a pool drain, what she's really seeing going down the drain is money.

NEXT: Get a Pool for Yourself, Not for Your Future Buyer >>