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Just out of curiosity, would you rather be living in an 896 square foot house WITHOUT a mortgage (on about 5 acres, paid off too), in a rural area...
Or would you rather live in a mortgaged house in an area of your choice, with choice of size?
This is assuming you are keeping the job/lifestyle you have now. This post may seem pretty retarded but I'm genuinely curious to see what people would choose. Sorry if it sounds a little vague I'm just interested to know what people would choose, especially after the housing bubble collapse of a few years back.
Also, the small rural house would be freshly built and moldable to your preference.
I'd choose to live without a mortgage (although I wouldn't choose a rural area). I would choose to find a house I could afford to pay for, w/o a mortgage, closer to the city, without acreage but with a large yard. That is feasible. The choice you give isn't reality. It's never either-or, is it?
896 sq ft is simply too small for the two of us. We downsized from 2400 sq ft to 1561 sq ft and that's as small as I want to go. And my wife would never go for rural.
Well, we sort of did something like that. We have 1200 square feet on our main level (and 650 finished basement space, though we spend 95% of our time on the main level). Our home is paid off and is on 3.5 acres in the mountains.
We sold our 1700 square foot home (mortgaged) in the suburbs of a small (500K people) city.
Fortunately, I could keep my job and just work remotely. I wouldn't want to commute from where I live, the biggest city to where I live is almost 40 minutes away.
However, I wouldn't trade my smaller, paid off house up in the mountains for any other house (with a mortgage)!
Zero interest in living in a rural area. Zero interest in living on 5 acres. Zero interest in living in 896 sq ft.
I'd rather pay for housing that suits my tastes in the area I want to live. And my guess is that even selling the 896 sq ft house and land isn't going to cover what I want so I'd have a mortgage anyway if I sold it so I could get what I wanted.
Life is too short to live somewhere I'd be miserable, even for free.
Interesting comments so far! To answer one question, it is possible to expand. I asked because I'm curious, but at the same time that is what I am going to do. I am going to be a bit of a working homesteader and am working to get the house paid off right away! I will be the only occupant most of the time with occasional visitors so I think it would be just the right size for me. I was just interested to see how people would respond given a similar situation. ��
I'd live in a mortgaged home in an area I want to live in.
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