Many buyers steer clear of homes with pools to avoid extra costs and maintenance.

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.

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