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Around here, if you have 2 identical houses, one with a pool and one without, the one without a pool will sell for more money. Most folks tire of a pool and the BS it takes to maintain one. Then you have all of the safety code restrictions and security fencing that's required here. And even with that you are still 100% liable for anything that goes bad in the pool like a kid that jumped the fence and drowned. A pool is NOT an asset here. We're also on water restrictions and most often you aren't allowed to run the waterfalls and sometimes you might have issues with filling it. So for here, the house is most important. The pool is a negative.
I don't know where in Texas you are, but I'm guessing somewhere in the Hill Country, or West Texas when you say water restrictions.
But you are not correct about the liability of a pool, as that is well settled state law. A pool is an attractive nuisance, so one must take reasonable steps (like a pool fence) to prevent access to children/pets. However, if one takes reasonable precautions, and acts prudently, then even if a child jumped the fence and drowned you would not be liable. It's about predicting the likely means of injury or death, and then safeguarding against them.
The key is that your precaution must be reasonable. In the case of a swimming pool, putting a fence around the pool is considered reasonable, and therefore you would not be liable for a trespasser drowning in your pool. However, if you didn't lock the fence, well, you may be liable there.
I had the same choices this summer. I went with the pool and less house option. Coming from Oregon I dreamed of the California outdoor lifestyle. Sometimes I wish I got a bigger house but when I'm in my pool and well laid out backyard I don't care about the house at all. We'll see how the winter goes.
If I were in California, Florida or Hawaii I would probably have made the same choice. Hope you're enjoying your new place!
How important is a pool? Will you use it daily? Is a community pool of health club pool an acceptable alternative?
What is the point of a bigger house? Do you entertain large groups often? Do your family members hate each other so much they cannot stand to sit in the same room? Is cleaning your primary hobby? Does your occupation require that you appear wealthy to clients and/or customers? Do you ahve a massive valuable art colleciton and need a lot of wall space to display it all? Do you work at home and need room for a sizable office?
A pool adds nothing to the value of the house most places or very little in warmer places. Thus you are getting the pool for free or at a discount. More space, better neighborhood etc adds to the value/price, so you pay for it. Thus, the pool is the better bargain - at least until you go to sell the house.
We built a pool, it was very expensive. We used it a lot for 10 years with as many as 20 people in it at a time and it was ll worth it. The last few years, we use it maybe 10 times a year with 1 - 3 people in it usually. We question whether it is even worth the cost of maintaining it, let alone the purchase cost. Sometimes I think we should fill it in and turn the pool space into an aviary. Then I think about grandchildren. Or maybe we will find time to swim more next year.
A bigger house is not always better. I was told this and did not listen. Then i learned it. Your family will be closer and happier if they are forced to do things together and learn to rely upon one another. Big house = no one does anything together. In fact, you rarely know whom if anyone is home or where they might be. Smaller house also forces you to control junk/clutter. If you have fewer things, you will be more selective and only have the better/more useful things. Also your things will be easier to find or notice and you will use them more and not forget about them. I sometimes com across something I have not seen in years and did not even remember we had it. "This is neat. I could have used this all these years, but it sat in this closet unnoticed." also the bigger house quickly becomes outdated. It did not seem that big with seven or eight people living in it, but now with three going on two, it seems ridiculous. The use of the space did not last any longer than the use of the pool did.
"Better" neighborhoods are not always better. Yes, you may have fewer kids around who smoke or shoplift, but you also have more over-scheduled, or snobby, of stressed out (bully) kids around. Many people think "newer" means "better" at least until a windstorm (hurricane, tornado, or just 90 mph winds) come along and suddenly newer is goner.
The coulda would shoulda thing will kill you. If we had waited one or two years, we could have bought an equal house with a dock and still had hundreds of thousands left over for vacations, college, maybe a boat, etc. instead of having our house make us broke and living check to check. IF we waited and bought the first house we looked tat in a lower scale town with no water (but it had an indoor pool!) we might have bought it when it dropped from $360,000 to $44,000. In addition to college, boat & vacation trips, I would be retired by now if I wanted to be. If we would have bought that house 1/4 mile form Grandma and Grandpa, our kids could have hung out with them all the time. They would have known them even better (and been sadder when Mom died). If we would have bought that house in Northville, our twins might well be professional singers, rather than a music teacher and a Psychology PhD candidate (which is better?). However our son woudl not likely have become a national champion rower. You can go round and round until the stress of it makes you dead. On the other hand, had we kept our house in California for another year, we would have likely had to sell it for $350,000 less in order to move. You can second guess everyhting, or you cna choose a path, charge ahead and never look back.
We had the money for both a pool and a bigish house. We used both. The pool had kids in it all summer almost all day every day. Between the pool and the trampoline and fire pit, our house was a popular hang out when the kids were teens. Sleep overs were so common I frequently did not know the kids I found eating breakfast in the kitchen some mornings. We had 21 people for thanksgiving, birthdays and sometimes 30 people for Christmas and could fit about 16 in our dining room comfortably. We had fires in the fireplaces and people flopped all over the floor reading in front of them (or sleeping). So ti was sort of worthwhile and sort of not. We ended up separated more than at our smaller house. Kids would crawl off to any one of three floors to hide away and be moody.I could go a whole week without seeing any of my five kids unless I hunted them down or they came and found me to say hi. We are a close family, but the big house made us less close. I knew less of what was gong on in their lives. During the time we were able to maintain sit down dinners, we had a practice of each telling what was gong on in thier lives. When sit down dinners became impractical because of schedules, we grew apart. People started eating in their rooms, or in the-library or in the game-room, or outside, or in front of the TV. Sometimes my son practices his trumpet and I never hear him (He is so good- professional level- it is a pleasure to hear him practice now). So a big house is a mix of good and bad things, but on the whole, I think a smaller house is better.
Wow, a lot of info in this post! I agree with the coulda, woulda, shoulda thing...you are right about second guessing and all that. I know all this logically, but it is sometimes more challenging for me to put into practice.
I like a bigger house, but really it is the layout of the house that is the most important. The house we bought is all one level except for a suite upstairs. My teenage son loves the upstairs suite; he gets privacy but it is straight up from the kitchen, so you know I see him all the time. The smaller house was a traditional two story, and even though we aren't at an age yet that we have to worry about stairs, I like not having to go up and down very often.
The house was the right choice! A home that has almost everything on your wish list is much better than just having a great pool with a home that doesn't meet your needs!
I would pick the house; a pool can always be added. When I had a house with a pool I was in it every day for months, then I would go in once a week and then once in a while and eventually rarely. While it was fun to do at first I found it dried out my hair and skin and frankly it became monotonous no matter how much you love it at first.
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The smaller house was a traditional two story, and even though we aren't at an age yet that we have to worry about stairs, I like not having to go up and down very often.
