If you won $5 million, would you move? Where? (attorney, house)

[DubbleT]

I'll take door number two Monty. I'd buy a better house in the same general area, one on a lot more acreage. Travel would take care of any desire to experience new places.

[projectmaximus]

Very cool question. I'll answer the spirit of the question, since the literal answer is obvious because our plans have always been to continue sort of a nomadic lifestyle indefinitely.

So I'll approach this as more of a "how would that money change our plans in terms of where we might spend more of our time and/or possibly even purchase property for personal use?"

Currently we are based in Taipei and plan to be for the next three years or so, but we also rent out our previous residences in Jacksonville and Miami, FL with the notion that we could someday move back to either one. The tentative plan is to return to the US by the time our older kid is approaching his teens and the prevailing thought was that we'd consider SF, LA or NYC metros (our three favorite places in the US) but most likely end up in Miami again.

Here are the likely possibilities as I see it, and they're not necessarily exclusive of each other:
1) Purchase modest home in a family-friendly area of NYC, SF or LA for $1.5-2 Million where we would plan to live
2) Purchase nice home in Miami for ~$1M where we would plan to live
3) Purchase a nice home in Taipei for $1-2M where we would plan to live
4) Purchase an overseas investment property for <$600k where we would plan to spend some time in the future and has potential to help for VISA purposes. Thinking Malaysia, Philippines, Greece, Portugal, Ecuador, Panama, Peru etc.
5) Purchase an investment property in the US with the idea that we might move to it sometime in the future. Thinking Austin, Portland, DC...places we like that aren't our top 3, but would be considered especially in the context of a life-changing event like this hypothetical suggests
6) Take a trip to Hawaii and explore the possibility of buying something there. This one is a total wildcard as it's not even on our radar right now, but who wouldn't at least consider this if they have the cash?

#1 I think is the biggest and most likely change from before. That's because we would go from wanting to live in one of those places but struggling to make the financial aspect make sense, to suddenly having that obstacle removed. Whereas we feel somewhat "resigned" (I put it in quotes cause honestly we'd be perfectly content being surrounded by family in Miami) to moving back to Miami someday, this would suddenly give us the chance to be bicoastal, or essentially split our time between Miami and whichever top 3 base we choose.

#2 With the extra cash, I imagine we'd probably swing also upgrading our Miami home from a modest $500k townhome to either a swanky condo in the center of a hip area, or a much larger home in the suburbs.

#3 This one is unlikely to happen, and if it did it would occur in place of either #1 or #2. My wife would do this in a heartbeat. I am resistant due to the political uncertainty with the PRC.

#4 If we're talking the Asian or LATAM cities, then really we're looking at <$150k which means this could occur alongside all the other options. Even without the $5M hypothetical, I am quite certain we'll buy something in the next decade in one of these locales once we've spent enough time to know where we want to have a presence long term. If it is Portugal then the chunk of cash would be much heftier and actually I'd probably invest in Portuguese companies rather than real estate to attain the Golden Visa.

#5 As I say, we'd revisit some of the other cities that are high on our relocation list, as having life-changing money would require a reexamination simply because it could change our minds.

[GrouperK]

Oh I absolutely would bail on Florida that very day. I would try to find the best rural school districts in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, find the smallest/most outdated house on the most land for under 500k.

Ideally central/west Utah on 40+ acres. Which has been my plan for a few years now.

[GrouperK]

Oops, can’t edit.

Meant to say buy/build a small four bay auto repair shop, hire two or three techs and run the day to day operation. Keep the leftover 4m or so for the kids or whatever.

[Kathy884]

I think I'd stay put in my current home (perfect for us really - nice little close in St. Louis, MO suburb -- really cute / charming area). I wouldn't want the hassle of another place or of moving and the cost and upkeep. I just like where we are and feel settled there. With DH retiring and me full time WFH, we looked into moving sometime back, and where we are and staying put just looked better and better. A big plus is that my son lives just 20 minutes away from us too. With the recent downturns in the stock market the monies would be nice for shoring up retirement savings (I think we're ok, but) and putting some monies aside for DS for his future (I don't think he'll and his partner will ever adjusted for inflation have as high paying jobs as we've had and don't really see them doing their own businesses as being more than a side line thing). But your never know. DS's renting now and if / when he's ready to buy a house, we'd with a win like that be able to help him more with that than what we are already planning (would allow him to get more house with an even larger down payment than we are already planning to provide / help with). (I'd still want to keep the home relatively modest) and have funds set aside for future taxes, maintenance, insurance on a more expensive home for him that he could tap into if it's more than what he could really afford on his own).

We already do the amount of travel that we want to. Love to do a little, but we don't have a travel bug big time. I'm going to Paris, Disneyland Paris, and Belfast on an 11 night trip next year (probably the last long haul flying trip I'll do - most travel we do is in the US), and the only thing I've said to myself is boy if money were no object I'd really like to do those flat bed seats instead of Premium Economy (I already decided to splurge on that for this one). Even with an extra five million, though, I think I'd have a tough time paying 2K more per person than I'm already paying for flights to get those. I think part of that is that I think it would send a bad message to DS regarding the value of money. He's going with me. I think buying another home vs. staying in our current home would be a bad message about the value of money for DS too. Five million can help with financial security, but it's not enough that it would change my lifestyle. I probably the wrong person for this kind of windfall.

It's also unlikely that I'll ever have something like that because lol I don't buy lottery tickets. I do like watching the HGTV show, "My Lottery Dream Home" however, so I find this thread really fun.

One friend of mine did have a financial change that really was a paradigm shift for them. Her husband was a Physics professor and sold a patent for a switching technology he developed with some other professors to Cisco Systems and their share was 32 million. She quit her international marketing job at 52 right when the windfall came thru, served on some boards, played a lot of tennis and took a lot of lessons too (actually really improved quite a bit and really got too good for our group -- and we're pretty competitive - I played in college). Her husband worked thru retirement age and then they moved to Florida (got a nice condo there and a really big sailboat that they live on a lot of the time -- dream of her husbands). They also did trips to Hawaii and her husband wasn't interested but she went on Safari in Tanzania with her mother-in-law All in all though, I really think she would have preferred to stay put in the St. Louis area near her family, but with the funds and her husband's dream of Florida, there was no excuse not to move. Still, she can do plenty of visits back. There are lots of easy direct flights from near where there condo is.

[Marv95]

Originally Posted by eschaton

So what do you do? Do you stay put in your home? Do you buy a bigger/better place in your existing metro? Or do you relocate to your "dream" area?

Get outta dodge. Move to the affluent part of Vancouver, South Florida, SoCal or SD and get a condo for myself, or get some land and build a cottage on the west side of the Puget Sound in Washington.

[Wannabe Alaskan]

I would go to Eagle River and buy one of those kickass cabins with the huge windows, it would have lightning-fast internet and it would be on quite a few acres of wooded land, preferably with a hill large enough for some awesome sledding.

[jcp123]

I absolutely would. Not to put down where I live, but Western NY wasn’t really my choice and it hasn’t been a peachy experience; even in Texas, where I lived before, it wasn’t a great place. I might consider Texas again, just a different part of it. On the other hand, we have extended family here and I feel like the kids are thriving when it’s a village raising them, and not just the nuclear family.

Still, my happy place is in the desert Southwest. I love Utah’s scenery but not sure I’d fit in well. New Mexico consistently comes to mind as well. However, at the same time I miss my native state, California, and wouldn’t mind being closer to it than NM can offer, so really any of the desert states would be open for consideration. Guess I’m just a sucker for the west

[MinivanDriver]

My mother and my wife's parents would have had to shuffle off their mortal coils first.



1. Annapolis, MD
2. Oregon coast
3. New Zealand
4. South of France
5. San Juan Islands in Puget Sound

[18Montclair]

It took us 2 years of extensive remodeling and renovations, that required endless permits and inspections, and 2 public hearings at our town council to make this house into the home we always wanted, and we love it, so aren't going anywhere.