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While we don't have "money", we're doing all right and we want a house that works for us.
A home over 3,500 is what works. We don't want less space. And I openly admit that we splurged on the home and got one at the upper end of our range. Why? because we're gonna be in that house for twenty years and we want to get what we want now while we can afford it. When we retire, we'll sell this one and get one we can afford. Simple as that.
I wouldn't want to live in the affluent suburbs if I had that kind of money. I'd take a rowhome in Center City Philly or a beautiful Victorian in the Spruce Hill section of West Philly before I'd ever dream about excommunicating myself to suburban hell.
Also, traveling is much more important to me than a big house. I'd rather acquire lived experiences, not some overblown status symbol in cookie-cutter land.
Much like a classic camaro, a boat, a Rolex, or travel, an immaculate historic house is just as much of a status symbol.
Too many posters here are putting their own personal circumstances and beliefs and financial circumstances on others with the idea that being frugal is the only way to go. Then calling everyone else but themselves superficial when they in fact spend their money on thing like travel or buying an Rv that others might not be interested in.
This a forum for stating ones personal beliefs. The OP was asking if you can buy bigger why do some people choose not to.
And there are lots of reasons. However going on vacation or buying an RV is more of a personal choice for what they want. It is less flashy than a huge house.
Certainly lots of people can buy a huge McMansion and still be flush with cash and others stretch themselves out because they want others to think they are on that level. I know known several from each example.
Too many posters here are putting their own personal circumstances and beliefs and financial circumstances on others with the idea that being frugal is the only way to go. Then calling everyone else but themselves superficial when they in fact spend their money on thing like travel or buying an Rv that others might not be interested in.
That's human nature for you. We will justify spending money on things we LIKE, but we are appalled and cannot understand why someone would spend money on something WE (not they) dislike.
I can afford a lot more house than I currently live in. I’ve no interest in upgrading.
1. Hassle
2. Have good neighbors
3. Have good HOA and only $60 a month.
4. Houses are black holes for money; no desire to throw more into one.
5. Don’t want to tempt a kid to move in.
6. Like my current lot, yard and overall location.
7. Know current house and its issues. We are friends.
Too many posters here are putting their own personal circumstances and beliefs and financial circumstances on others with the idea that being frugal is the only way to go. Then calling everyone else but themselves superficial when they in fact spend their money on thing like travel or buying an Rv that others might not be interested in.
You're quite right. But there is a caveat. There's strong cultural endorsement of a house as being something solid, demonstrably good, responsible and salutary. Any other purchase smacks of indulgence, profligacy, dissipation. A house however is special. Sure, going into unsustainable debt is bad. But buying a larger house doesn't garner the sort of opprobrium as say buying a costly sports car, the rationale being that the house should appreciate. A larger house may have higher carrying-costs than a smaller one, but these costs are to some extent recouped. This at least has been the traditional thinking, for generations.
My own view is that so much of the rationale and tradeoffs of housing are dependent on the local market. What is sensible and wise in Los Angeles might be heinously stupid in small-town Ohio. Healthy markets reward allocating more of one's resources to one's residence. Moribund markets punish it. Our judgment has to adapt to the realities of our locale. This of course is easier in theory than in practice.
We choose not to spend large portions of my budget on cars or primary home (we own lots of rental properties so can't say we don't spend much on properties in general).
I can really only speak for us. My wife and I currently have a 2003 Altima with 130k miles and a 2012 Leaf which we purchased used 3 years ago for less than 30% of the retail price (of course we didn't get the $7500 tax credit that the original buyer did). Both cars have tons of scratches and dings that I never had any inclination to fix.
We live in a small town home which we reluctantly purchased after having our second kid and realizing we needed more space than my mother-in-laws house offered. When we moved in the house needed a long list of repairs and pretty much everything throughout the house was warn and old. My wife's cousin came to help us move in and assumed we were gonna do a lot of work (repaint, refloor, new appliances) but we never had any intention of doing any of that. It was adequate in our eyes (not ugly, still serviceable and functional) so we didn't upgrade anything, and we only did maybe half the repairs. We'll get around to the others when we need to lol
Just to put this in perspective, we own a lot of rentals that are much nicer than our live in home. But yeah, we just opt to spend our budget on other items that bring us more joy and satisfaction.
Same here. Several of our rentals are much bigger than the house we live in, although I wouldn’t say they are ‘nicer’ since they have smaller yards, and that is a big thing that I enjoy.
I like getting outside and being able to walk through my own woods. I could own one of those huge 5k sqft McMansions, but if it were on a tiny 1/4 acre lot I would be miserable.
Well where I live is very important to me and it would have been nice to find what we wanted and not have to pay as much. but that's not how it works. when we live in the 250k neighborhood, we had to put up with a lot of crap - cars up and down the streets, unkempt lots and resultant problems, lots of deferred home maintenance, proliferation of rentals, petty property crimes. I didn't want to put up with that anymore. Sure, we could have stayed at that house and banked a ton of money as our income far surpassed what we were paying for the mortgage... the neighborhood was in a good location, too. But we weren't happy. Three months after purchasing we realized we had made a mistake but we made the best of it and stayed there for ten years, gaining equity along the way. We sold at a good profit too, which we in turn used to purchase the home we want in the neighborhood we want. We had to pay more for it, but so be it. We were further along in our careers and it was the logical next step. Every day I step into my house and pull up to my neighborhood, I feel joy. Can't put a price tag on that...oh wait, yeah, you could, lol. it's all about differing priorities, some people want to spend money on stocks and savings accounts. we save, but we're not crazy about amassing sums of money. Where I live is very important and the home I live in is important as well.
You're quite right. But there is a caveat. There's strong cultural endorsement of a house as being something solid, demonstrably good, responsible and salutary. Any other purchase smacks of indulgence, profligacy, dissipation. A house however is special. Sure, going into unsustainable debt is bad. But buying a larger house doesn't garner the sort of opprobrium as say buying a costly sports car, the rationale being that the house should appreciate. A larger house may have higher carrying-costs than a smaller one, but these costs are to some extent recouped. This at least has been the traditional thinking, for generations.
My own view is that so much of the rationale and tradeoffs of housing are dependent on the local market. What is sensible and wise in Los Angeles might be heinously stupid in small-town Ohio. Healthy markets reward allocating more of one's resources to one's residence. Moribund markets punish it. Our judgment has to adapt to the realities of our locale. This of course is easier in theory than in practice.
Well, theoretically anyway, it is easily justifiable from a financial perspective. Its about the only real "Conspicuous Consumption" that can be justified financially.
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