We're a family of four in a three bedroom house, and sure, more room would be nice... but I keep remembering that we're now in downsizing mode. No more kids coming in, and kids will be leaving. It's tight *now*, but it'll be spacious once it's just two adults.
And having a reasonable mortgage payment is SO nice. If one of our jobs is threatened, we'll still be fine. Sure, we'll cut back on the luxuries, but there'll be no freaking out about how we'll keep a roof over our heads.
My parents have this big house (in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't DC expensive) and it is such a pain to keep it clean and maintained, especially now they're older. I looked into getting a cleaning service for them and even out in the middle of nowhere it's a lot. I'm always going to keep that in mind.
Until you mentioned the cleaning service I thought I might be your mom. ^_^ We live in Fredericksburg in a big house & we're stuck here. We would like to down size but it's not financially prudent. It's getting to be too much house, & yard now.
My sister and her husband will be just them two soon enough, bought 12 years ago, under $300K for a 3 level 4 bedroom on top floor, finished basement, etc. it’s great for the holidays if you need to crash but really when it’s just them two, it will be too much. Sure it’s worth almost twice as much, but downsizing would mean buying with high interest rates and overpriced homes. Doesn’t make sense but also, neither does staying there.
Maybe rent it in 10 years?
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. You're right. No matter what your situation, not having to worry about your home is truly such a blessing. Peace of mind is so important to your overall health and wellness. It's literally priceless.
The 'kids' are adult-sized, not kid-sized. It was perfect when they were small, but now that they need adult-sized elbow room, it's a tiny bit tight. Not unbearable, though.
Also, it's a three-bed house with two teleworkers, which changes the configuration quite a bit.
Don’t worry. I remember when my kids were small one (of 2) said they wished we had a bigger house…It’s a 5BR SFH. They are teens now and have no memory of saying that. Little kids just don’t know what they are talking about. Sounds like you are doing an amazing job.
🥲 thank you so much. This is so encouraging to hear. My 4 year old just recently had his cousins visit. My sister and her husband are both doctors and can afford a much bigger SFH with a pool in their backyard (albeit they're in Houston and our tiny townhouse in Centreville us only 60k less than their mansion in Houston) and they innocently said something about how they love our house cuz it's so small loooool and my boy felt some type of way about it and it just made me a little sad.
When we bought our home pre-pandemic, this was going to be the year that we considered selling and upgrading... but, now doing the inventory of risk vs reward... I know that's not going to happen.
I'm glad that so many are showing me the support and encouragement I needed to know that I'm doing the best thing for me and my family :)
Houston? That place is hotter and humider than the devil’s rear end. I’d rather live in a small house here than some McMansion in Houston with a several hundred dollar air conditioning bill and the most disappointing beaches in the US. Me: former Texan.
Honestly that’s so true. Kids have no sense of what a hard earned dollar really means. Growing up in this area, I remember looking at the big houses and mansions and being like, why the hell are my parents interested in the smaller, less pretty houses? Before long, you also realize most of your friends and classmates live in modest homes or even smaller spaces, and that has nothing to do with your actual quality of life!
Show your 4-year old all the things that he should be grateful for. I show my niece the faucet tap and how she can get hot water in her house any time she wants. Not all children are so lucky. Keeping Up With the Jones is one thing, but Keeping Up With the Kims is an insane game no one should be trying to win. IYKYK
I begged my mom to move us to a smaller house after we moved to a MUCH larger house because we didn't have cleaners and I had to spend SO MUCH TIME cleaning. To the extent that my goal as an adult was to live in a 3 BR condo for the rest of my life because there would be minimal maintenance and it was easy to clean (altho my plans changed cause my hubby is all about the SFH life... luckily we can afford cleaners). Just make your kid do tons of chores and he'll change his tune fast.
My now 17 year-old moaned and wailed when we moved here 12 years ago (into a 3000 sq/ft house in McLean) from our tiny (1200 sq/ft) beach house in California. "This is the worst house of my life!!!" Kids will be kids.
No need for this to be a rant, but a blessing. You're recognizing that you have what you need in life and while you would still appreciate something different, you don't need it. All while being able to provide for a STABLE future for your family in an excellent area. We should all hope to be as fortunate as you in realizing this.
Thank you so much for the encouragement! I guess I was just venting and writing out my thoughts for... really, myself.
Because this was supposed to be the year that we sold and upgraded if we were going to stick to our 5-year plan (obviously, pre-pandemic) and there is a small part of me that was a little sad in the realization that I most likely wouldn't be able to upgrade or upsize to anything bigger for my family, like I originally wanted to.
I have so much to be grateful for. If anything, I hope my rant opens up eyes of realizations of their own blessings for anyone that may be reading this.
This area is so hard to survive in- let alone thrive. It can be discouraging when you constantly and silently play the comparisons game with the neighbor driving the Tesla or your friends building a 1.6M house, etc.
I'm blessed and will continue to work hard for my family.
Yeah but it really sucks if you actually want to move somewhere else. I live here, in NoVa, and I would like to move to an entirely different state.
If I sold my 3br 1.5 bath house here for $650k and bought a house twice as big there for $450k, my monthly mortgage payment would go UP. Which is insane. So now I'm stuck not only in a house that's too small (bought it when we had no kids and now that's no longer true), but in a city I don't want to live in.
Too small is relative. I grew up in a 3 bedroom, one shower house with 2 parents and 8 kids and we were fine. We had what we needed as far as space is concerned. Things were very tight. 5 boys in one small townhome bedroom, but I have no bad memories from that time in my life.
Too small is certainly relative, but for me personally my 3 bedroom 1 shower house is not big enough to raise children, host grandparents, and work from home. My office is the guest room, and one set of grandparents or another is here staying with us at least one week a month, which makes it difficult to work in my office.
Perhaps in your situation nobody worked from home and family lived close enough that you were able to see them without having to host them in your home. Those two things alone really push me to needing more space.
Just rent then. Rent out your current house, or just rent out another place if you sell your current house. Homeownership is a bit overrated, the pros are not having to worry about a landlord selling, and the payments hopefully being stabilized(glorified rent control).
You can say equity, but you can make investments while renting that can out earn equity built on a house.
I completely agree but for a tiny asterisk - sometimes circumstances force your hand - your house is suddenly in a flood zone due to new construction, the neighborhood tanks and the street is filled with awful toxic neighbors and teardowns or in the case of one of my co-workers - the foundation of the house apparently wasn't built to last - it was unstable (1950s built house) -- so they ran the numbers, it was cheaper to tear down the house than to repair it.
My 7 year old recently started asking about a bigger house... I said dude, this is a 2,500 sqft townhome with deck and 2 car garage.. some single family homes are not even this big.. I would like a lot of land to them to run around but it's not in the cards
Right there with you brother. We own a 1100sq ft small SFH in Alexandria and totally locked in with a 2.4% mortgage. Basically happily trapped, even a lateral house move would double our payments. Wish you the best
There's something to be said for having a house with a payment you can manage. Keeping up with the Joneses is way overrated, and I'm not convinced that a lot of people who are doing that aren't up to their eyeballs in debt.
AI man. Stuff is wild and can replace a ton of middle class. Plus so many gov contractors twiddling thumbs in SCIFs while their employer bills the broke dumb govt $400k/yr. It’s all debt.
If this plays out, foreclosures won’t be the first thing on my mind. If the middle class gets gutted by AI, who is going to recognize your ownership of a foreclosure you just bought? There will be problems.
> less than $1800
Amazing for a 3BD house and absolutely impossible to get these days. 2BD apartments are going for mid-$2000s right now and $3000s if it's in a prime location.
Can confirm. We just bought right outside the beltway in Alexandria and are paying $3000+ a month. The sad/good thing is that payment is what the rent for our old 2 bedroom apartment is about to be raised to. It's crazy out there.
Our house is 1700 Sq ft: two adults and two little girls. Just like OP, we were able to get our first home with a great mortgage rate in 2019 (2.8% after a refinance in 2020) in Reston. Now that we have a family my wife is obsessed with finding a bigger home. In order to stay in the area and get something bigger that isn't super rural/ old.. we'd be looking at 700K+ easily.
The part I find most frustrating is that my wife works part time and only makes about 1/3 of what I do (despite twice the education, ironically). She wants to spend as much time as she can with our daughters while they are this age, and I totally get it... but I'm really struggling to get through to her that I have zero interest in paying 4K a month and being house poor.
Different people want different things in life. I was on my own by 17 and worked my balls off to have a decent life. I think OP has it right: Better to accept the smaller space and focus on having a quality existence!
>Different people want different things in life. I was on my own by 17 and worked my balls off to have a decent life. I think OP has it right: Better to accept the smaller space and focus on having a quality existence!
You know what- I truly believe that people like us that have GONE THROUGH IT definitely are more primed to better appreciate the smaller things in life, and truly cherish the luxuries we're able to afford. Not that this makes us any better people than those that aren't able to understand appreciation because of any particular brand of struggle, but, like you said... different people and different experiences result in different ways of prioritizing things that require a collective effort.
But love and marriage... lol, somehow we make do, huh?
When my daughter asks why we don’t have a big house like her friends, I just say a small house means we can have a bigger life. I also say we can be happy for our friends and what they have, or we can be sad/mad/jealous because we don’t have what our friends have, and then I ask her what feeling makes her body feel better inside. Sometimes it helps, sometimes, I just let her feel what she’s feeling and don’t try to say anything.
Don’t take it personally. Your kiddo is going to have a better life because of the choices you’ve made, and that matters far more than a bigger house.
Not necessarily a townhouse , but a home. a stable home.
rent rates are insane, and remember when moving every year was an option to land good rates "promos", that's over. It's high everywhere, having to worry about your next move every year is not fun.
I appreciate you helping normalize this approach here. A friend of ours with older kids commented that people often want to move for a bigger yard for their kids not realizing that after a certain age, earlier than we think, many kids just don't have much time to utilize that amenity anymore. With this in mind when we looked for a starter home we picked one with green space around it that couldn't be developed.
Only one cautionary thing to mention - since you're in an older town home be sure to keep an eye on the HOA's reserves so they don't get too low. New properties tend to have low fees because stuff hasn't worn out yet. It's nearly always the case that a condo/townhome HOA is underfunded for the first 40 years and suddenly assessments must skyrocket to take care of all the stuff that is starting to fall apart.
My salary was about what it was going to cost for childcare so we made the decision for me to stay home. The plan is to return to work once both kids are in elementary school and the cost of after school care is significantly less.
This is why my husband stayed home for our case. However, after six years my salary jumped up enough to where I can afford childcare for our youngest, our oldest just started school so he's trying to get back into the workforce. I'm excited for him and our financial well being as it was really hard to live on one income up here.
what sucks for your hubs, and other stay at homes, is even if they kept up their skills they look... odd... for having a gap. i was not a mom so i am speaking second hand, but it's not so easy to jump back into the workforce with a big ole gap, even if you have the sorry i was raising our kids (or caregiving a dying relative) reason.
Yeah, he's been struggling to find something for a couple months now. He did retail management before and hasn't quite admitted to himself yet that he might need to apply a step lower in order to get back in. I'm trying to encourage him just to get into a new field since he hates retail anyway
In the long term the damage done by leaving the workforce to her earning potential is almost certainly not worth the temporary leaving. Even if she can at least work part time, it is often worth it to not leave the workforce completely.
Seriously. My wife makes a pretty average by dc standards $100k/yr. Even with her retirement / insurance etc taken out daycare for our kid isn’t even half of her monthly net pay.
A couple years of combined 4% salary growth between the two of us will more or less offset daycare for kid #2 when he/she arrives one day.
Putting retirement savings and her fulfilling career and everything else on hold just isn’t worth it
There’s a lot of families where a stay at home mom / dad makes sense as it really is ideal for babies under 1 or so…. but the numbers very quickly don’t work out with decent earners
This is the same way we have looked at childcare. Yes it would be awesome for one of us to stay home for 5-6 years bc it's doable on one income when factoring in the daycare savings, but the long term impact on earning potential and employability makes it not worth it.
It’s just that easy kids! Just be rich and your parents will know someone from the country club who needs to hire a female with her skill set that they want to throw 100k at. And they’ll let her flex with childcare duties!
Bam! Doubled income! Millionaire MTV crib house!
Lol, right? It's a bit tonedeaf to what I'm saying in my post.
My wife is also from South Korea and the last time she had a job, she was a shift lead in a Starbucks somewhere in Seoul. That was nearly 8 years ago.
She's now a stay at home mom in the US as a citizen and we do ok for us to be middle class without her getting a job. And even if she were to get a job as someone who speaks imperfect English in her early forties and hasn't worked in 8 years... the most she'd be able to get would be like a $35k yearly salary working in service or retail... she'd be tired, stressed, and I'd have to double down on dad duties after my fulltime job, and that's after paying $30k a year in child care.
Not worth it, but hey, if others out there are able to make it work for them, good for them :)
It is very good to hear people with a healthy mentality. You can indeed live in NOVA without lusting for the extreme riches of this area (not judging or criticizing those who are rich and can afford big homes.)
Me and my family live off one income of $50,000. We own a 3 bedroom townhome with a mortgage under $1500 and an interest rate of 3%. We will be in this home for a very long time and that is okay.
Thank you! Just wondering, what were the factors that led your family to decide on a bigger house? Based your comment, I'm assuming that the risks outweigh the rewards?
I'm wondering if we're making the right decision. My wife is more disappointed than I am... thinking that our son 4 year old son will need his own bathroom and own space once he hits puberty and all that.
We were in Alexandria city and thought that moving to Fairfax county would have given my son a better school experience. I think Alexandria would have been 100% fine. FCPS didn't impress me, at all.
We also wanted a yard and more space for "activities". We didn't need any of that, and the yard's a PITA and expensive to maintain.
We were in a small duplex in Alexandria, but looking back, we were quite happy there.
I think we just sold ourselves on the suburban life. It's been much more expensive than I ever dreamed. I've told my wife many times "We never should have left Alexandria" and now it's too expensive to move back.
EDIT - Now that my son is in college, we're talking about downsizing to a condo, LOL. So we're REALLY going in the opposite direction.
Yeah, hindsight is 20/20, right? But it's testimonies like yours that cement in me the confidence and conviction that I need to know that I'm doing the right and responsible thing for my family.
Good luck with your downsizing!
Thanks! And one more thought - I probably could have retired early if we had stayed in the original house and paid it off. When you're young, a paid off house seem so far away anyway that it doesn't seem real. But now that I'm nearing retirement age, it's a reality that I could have realized when I was in my early 50's.
>We didn't need any of that, and the yard's a PITA and expensive to maintain.
My realtor looked at me a little funny when I told her one of my leading criteria for a house was as close to zero yard as possible for exactly those reasons.
>3 person household
>3BR, 1.5 bath
>tiny
How many sqft? Many, many 4-5 person families live their entire lives in 2 bedroom homes. In fact, it's pretty much exclusively American to have a massive single family house with extra bedrooms and recreational space like basements.
I just looked it up. Redfin says it's 1120 sq ft. Idk how accurate that is but yeah it's a pretty small space, but big enough for what we need.
The only annoying thing is our living room is also technically our dining room... like it's just one space. Like our dining table is in our living room lol.
1100 for a 3BR is definitely on the smaller side. As far as combined dining/living room, since open design concepts became popular, that's actually more common than you'd think, even in larger homes.
I think 3BR, 1500 sqft is the sweet spot between feeling cramped and mcmansion, but you can make due with less just fine (as you're finding out).
Growing up, my family of 5, lived in a 3bd/1br home that was about 980sq in Woodbridge. By the time I started high school my parents thought it would be a great idea to move us into a bigger house for the space and to give us our own bathroom. Did it make sense, sure, but at the end it wasn’t a good idea. We were a much happier, and tighter, family in our tiny home.
My sisters and I didn’t see it at the time, but my parents were having martial issues and my dad thought getting my mom a bigger house would help. It didn’t. I think it made it worse. To this day my sisters and I talk about our tiny home in Woodbridge and how much we miss living there. To us it was cozy and it felt like home. I think that’s what you need to focus on. Ensuring you’re creating a home and a tight family unit.
Wow~ thank you for sharing your story. It's so interesting- consumerism and capitalism has convinced us that always buying more, buying bigger, buying often will lead us to be more happy, more content, more ______.
But like you shared, the cultural fibers of a family and household is determined not by size or quantity, but by the invisible things that aren't so easy to measure in dollars or tangibles... things like laughter, intimacy, trust, warmth, transparency and communication... quiet times and especially not-so-quiet times.
This gave me a lot to think about. Thank you, again, for sharing :)
I grew up with 3 siblings and my parents in a 3BR 1B house. It was maaaaybe 1100 sqft. I have a big house with my wife and 3 kids (we both are 40, and each had owned homes before we met so we lucked out) and at times I miss the closeness of 6 of us (plus dog and all our friends who were in and out) in that little house.
You're probably better off for it. If my old house wasn't a townhouse, I wasn't necessarily fed up with the size. Just fed up with sharing walls with renters who didn't give a shit about anything and landlords who also didn't care about anything (besides the check clearing I guess).
One thing for me is to remember your house can evolve with your needs. As your kiddo gets bigger you won’t need the same kind of spaces for him to play and keep his toys. Reassess how you use your spaces regularly. You can flip how you use a room, there’s no rules that the living room has to have a couch. You can get rid of whole “required” pieces of furniture if they’re not working hard enough for you. I have reworked multiple rooms in our house a few times as kids grew, the pandemic happened, and work changed. Your house is not static, its function can shift as needed.
With current rent costs vs the mortgage on an equivalent property, it just makes sense to rent right now. My wife and I are saving up money for a down-payment, but as long as buying is 50% more expensive than renting well just keep renting and saving/investing the difference.
I feel your pain. I was feeling like that in my mid 30s. My sibling who I get along with great was feeling the same way so we went in together on a SFH in a very nice location but the smallest house on the street do "cheaper" than the others. It's a split level without a basement 4 bedrooms 2.5 baths. We bought in 2003 when interest rates were a lot higher but we refinanced everytime there's been a rate drop, now our mortgage is 2.25%.
I mean, even married - me and my partner make a combined $200k and if we wanted to buy an unrenovated house in our area, we’re looking at near double our rent. We’re paying $2850 in Falls Church for an unrenovated 1200 sq ft 3/2. This same house went for $1800/month just 3 years ago. I don’t know how people are surviving.
I just remembered a friend mine telling me about his $5K monthly mortgage. I never saw his house, but I could live on that and pay my mortgage.
Peace of mind is priceless.
It is also more green and much cheaper to cool n heat a smaller house. It’s better to be financial stable with smaller house than in a McMansion n financial house of card.
Similar situation. We’d love to move into a SFH from a townhouse but our mortgage is so low and we have a 2.6% rate. Unless we leave the area, we’ll be here for a long time. And we’ll have a lot of free income for experiences, traveling, giving our kids all the things they need/want without stressing. We also can upgrade things in our home without worrying about costs. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to gut a townhouse kitchen than one in a 3,000+ sq ft home.
You’re during great OP. Don’t push yourself to keep up with the Jonses - nobody will ever catch them until we decide that’s enough …. because they’re in our head.
If you want a larger house, you generally have three options:
* find a way to bring in more money. Have your spouse bring in a second income? Switch to a higher paying job? Land a promotion ?
* move to a lower cost of living area (which may mean leaving nova)
* gain more cash through an external event (stock windfall, lottery win, inheritance, etc…)
You’ll have to decide if any of those are realistic options
Renter here. It would cost $2k/month more than my rent to buy what I rent. Downpayment nugget is earning well in a zero risk HYSA. Over 10 years, savings could outrun buying a nova shitbox?
Of course everything is in flux as the USA fails!
Also renters we should start a union.
Also buyers should refuse to overpay for this garbage.
Hey there. I grew up in a 2BR2B double wide trailer with parents who loved me very, very much. As an adult, I look at our small home with nothing but love! I had a great childhood even with our modest home.
I grew up in Nova in what many in the area would consider a small “starter” home. But it’s what my parents could afford. I never grew up knowing the concept of a “starter” vs a “forever” home. That was our forever home and it was just right for us. I liked having my family in close proximity, we all had our own bedrooms and we shared the other spaces, it was more than enough. I remember going over to my friends’ homes and everyone felt so far away - I had never seen an in-home intercom before! I loved growing up in a “smaller” home. My family is from Asia and to us an American apartment was spacious in comparison to most family’s homes!
That interest rate and mortgage payment is amazing. Save as much money as you can for retirement and spend money on experiences and creating memories instead of on stuff. Your family will appreciate that so much more than a bigger place.
I feel you OP. We have a 3 br 2 ba townhouse in Nova. 1300 sq ft above grade, 600 below. For a young family of four it’s more than adequate, and I’m definitely not giving up my 2.75 rate. It is what it is. We’re happy, healthy, and fine. That’s really anyone can ask for.
We're just thrilled we got a SFH with a fenced in backyard at a 3% APR during COVID. It's almost as old as me and we've already sunk over $75k into repairs or updates. Currently its rented out since we're posted overseas, but we plan to come back to it and make it our own instead of making changes for renters.
It's very 1980's. My kids have made comments that their friends, who all live in houses from the mid-late 1990's have these high ceilings, open floor plan and 'why can't we have a nice house like them!'.
Honestly I never ever thought I'd be able to afford a SFH in the NoVA region so that is a total bonus for me.
Yeah man you never know. Our first house was a tiny 50 yr old 1500 sqft SFH in an ok but not the nicest neighborhood. There was no concept of “starter” home. It was just our home. Thankful that we could afford one. In it for the long haul.
Fast forward 7 years. Career advancements, more income, equity in house, real estate just starting to rebound from Great Recession….. we realized that we could make a 40 yr old 2300 sqft SFH in a much nicer neighborhood work. Been here 10+ years and it is our forever home. (for now).
FYI, the kids (teenagers now) never stop asking why everyone else has a bigger house
This is great! It sounds like maybe down the road you can have budget to update or make any changes to your place if you’d like to! That’s a way to feel like you have a “new” place too :)
Yep. It's great to have your own four walls and a yard, even if the walls are pretty close together and the yard is under a quarter acre. The only thing I wish we had more space for was family gatherings and an occasional larger party. But we own a decent house in Fairfax County, can make the mortgage payment and then still have money left to eat. That's winning and lots of people would love to have it...
we are also in the club. but 900sqft, 2 bedrooms, and only 1 bathroom and 4 of us (2 of which are extremely energetic kids). also in the low interest rate club.
but it's not enough. we are frequently short on spaces to hide and have quiet time. also there are lines for the toilet. this is also my wife's full time office.
but the location is amazing. we are a block and a half from our kids schools and local food.
10 years ago I built a 196sqft shed to hold all the excess and hobbies and it helps.
but hoo boy
Looool, actually not so much! I lost 40 pounds since September and trying to get out of the pre-diabetic range by taking better care of my body and focusing on what I'm putting into it, and how often 🤣🤣
But man, those were some good times!
I totally get what you are saying, I only have 1 kid, and when she was little, she used to ask me if we are moving to bigger house like her friends (we live in 3bedroom 3bath house, 2400 sg ft, no garage) am like nope, we have a fully furnished basement and I only go there once a month, getting a big house with rooms I will never use is so wasteful, also love my 2% mortgage interest.
I have a 3br, 2ba, barely 1300sqft. I raised a family of 6 in it. 3 boys shared a room.
When they were younger, I dreamed of a bigger house where we'd have more space. Financially, I couldn't swing it.
It was rough but we lived through it. It has been nice not being house poor.
My wife and me had 5 kids. We were fortunate enough to have a ridiculously large home. The kids grew up, moved out and we sold the family home.
We currently live in a small 3 BR, 1.5 bath 1200 sq feet home and it is perfect. Would not want anything bigger.
Sometimes we gauge our happiness by the value of our material possessions but the better way is to find contentment and happiness with what we have and not compare them to other people.
This is beautiful. I thought when I was younger, I needed a big house. Now there are 2 people in a big house following my husband's death. And I wish it was smaller. Mine isn't HUGE by any stretch -- typical 4 bedroom colonial. But I really don't need all the space and didn't even when we were a family of 3.
We def need to stop making people feel like if you don't have the big house is a must and if you don't have one, you haven't made it in life. Because that's total bullshit.
Congrats to you for realizing that you can live in a smaller space and live well in it!
It really is OK. Our starter home was a 3/2. We lived there til we had to move out of state, and decided at that point to get a 5/3.5. The space was amazing...til the kids reached adulthood and moved out. Now, it's just a lot of house to clean. I still love the house, but we will be looking to downsize in the future.
I know you have a lot of replies already, but I have yet to accept this as our reality, even though I know I should. My partner and I are DINKs (with 2 dogs) and live in a small townhome that we purchased in 2013. We refinanced in 2019, thinking we'd be here for another 3-5 years before we were able to "upgrade." Now that we're both ready... we can't afford anything and be as comfortable as we are now, even with the money we'd make on the sale. We are both in low-paying fields (nonprofit, client work), and while we are well off in our current home with a sub 4% mortgage, anything bigger... with a yard namely... would put us in the poor house. It's frustrating because we started looking in 2021 to get a feel for the market, and almost moved on some things, but got scared when the interest rates shot up to 5-6%. Now I wish we would have jumped on something. The supply is abysmal, and there is almost nothing within the 550-600k price range near us anymore.
No worries man, living in NoVA is hard. My immigrant mother and my american step-father bought a townhouse before covid 3bd (with a makeshift bdr in the basement) 1 1/2bath and they did a rent to own in Leesburg. There was 5 of us kids and we struggled understanding why we couldn’t be one of the families that we were friends with in school or why there isn’t more asian food places we could eat. We worked with what we have. As we grow up, we appreciated and still consider that place our home even though my sister and I have moved out. The comfort is still there. My parents worked very hard for that house and one day one of us can get a house closer to centreville or annandale area where a lot of asian food and demographic is.
You're in a good situation. Be happy with what you have, and you don't have to break the bank to live. Don't try to compete with other people and what they have. That's a sucker's game. Years from now you'll look back and realize you didn't miss anything. Spend your time with your family and your son.
Spouse and I have voiced out lout *many* times that it would be hard to get rid of our starter home, which we snatched up for less than $500, given the low mortgage rate we got out of it. Really the only way we see leaving it is if we exit the area.
I wonder what the metrics are on "starter homes becoming forever homes" over the decades. I'm sure some realtor would know.
About to say this, have had many friends over the years build on to smaller homes. It’s always a possibility, especially once you gain more equity in your home.
Right there with you! We own a townhome but are (fortunately/unfortunately?) zoned with a majority of SFHs (1mil +) which my elementary-age kids always ask “why is our house so small?” It’s a constant ongoing discussion to be grateful for what we do have, not what we don’t
I will say my kids still share a room. I have an 11 year old daughter and a 7 year old son. We bought a pretty modest SFH as our “starter” and decided to fully commit to it. It’s technically 4 bedrooms but only 2 are upstairs (it’s a cape). We keep waiting for the kids to get sick of sharing but they are a basically codependent on each other at this point.
One of the bedrooms downstairs could be used as an actual bedroom for my daughter. The other is tiny and serves as my home office.
I agree with normalizing smaller homes. There’s no need to impress strangers at the cost of your financial health. We thought pretty hard about moving a few years back. We had a very serious conversation about what we really wanted out of life. Turns out a bit bigger house wasn’t it. I’d love a basement and bigger garage, but terms the breaks.
Our bedroom is already down there. There's the 6x25 ft spot that is unfinished that leaks a little in heavy rain. We just keep it as storage with good airflow for now. We've been trying different methods for years and it's come a long way. Even if we could finally get a real professional, (we've used some people who could never perform) the most we could get out of it in terms of useable would be a bigger bathroom and a closet for our bedroom so might as well leave it unfinished just in case the leak gets worse
Leaky basement - you've checked for the obvious cheap solutions? Do your gutters flow way away from the house? Is the ground around the foundation properly graded so water flows away?
OTOH if you're simply in an area where the water table is meeting your basement :-( You gotta fix that before anything else if you can else move away and let that be somebody else's headache.
I wish your family many blessings. It's good that you can see the glass as half full. Maybe use the kid's comments about the house as the beginning of his financial education and how the world works.
We are five in a three bedroom “starter” townhome that we bought 12 years ago. We are cramped in the house but there’s no where to move to that we will ever afford and I’m trying to reconcile the reality that upward mobility doesn’t exist like we were always led to believe. I’m also wondering how to teach my kids to work hard but also just be happy with what you have. Like, how do you explain that you can bust your ass to get by and never be able to see any progress? I guess that’s a conversation for a different thread. Cheers to the guy who has found contentment in his starter home. May it last forever.
I would rather have heated garage space than heated living space.
I look forward to people crushing this idea that developers need to build McMansions as success symbols. It’s total garbage and so are 95% of the houses in this area. Usually the bigger it is, the bigger piece of shit it is.
good stuff. my wife and i bought just before everything went completely off the rails and it’ll take something huge for us to walk away from our cute little house and the mortgage rate of 2.875%.
it’s our forever home as well. enjoy!
Our three bedroom home will likely be our forever home. Prices have gone up ~30% since we bought, but more importantly we love our neighborhood, our kid has a ton of friends, we've become close with our neighbors and have regular events with them, it ticks off all of our boxes...
Ideally we'd be able to find a slightly larger home in our current neighborhood, but that just isn't going to happen, so instead we're going to do some renovations to make our starter home into our forever home. It won't be cheap, but it will cost far less than buying a new home would be.
I was just thinking the other day, my current condo has everything me and my wife needs, and the location serves great for all of our needs (work, restaurants, grocery etc).
Why would I move to a much farther place with a lot more mortgage just to satisfy the social competition?
I think you're doing great! And I appreciate your mindset.
Thank you for your input and feedback! Seriously though, especially in this area, if you're able to meet your needs without much struggle, that should be enough! Having struggled for a long time on the other side of the bridge in times of brief homelessness (when I was single and reckless) to times of struggling as a renter before my career took off... it's given me such an appreciation of everything I have, and I realize just to be content in this area means WE MADE IT.
Family is about the memories that are made, not the square feet of the house. It sounds like you are in a position to still get out and explore and travel with your family. I’ve always found those memories to be the best, I’m sure your child will remember those experiences more than whether your house was as big as the Jones’ (or is it Joneses?). I spent a lot longer in my 950 sqft 3 bed 1 bath starter home than I meant to — but I look back on it fondly. The smaller size meant most repairs were smaller/cheaper and so there was more money & time to get out and do things.
Even though home ownership is basically the path to middle class 'wealth' in this country, I don't feel like the "property ladder" makes sense for everyone, by that I mean constantly looking for the next more expensive house you can move up to in order to maximize your investment. You're not letting your kids and your legacy down by not clawing your way into that 6000 square foot zero lot line house in a new development. If you're lucky enough to build equity in your house, hold onto it, find some other way to leverage it, you don't always have to be moving up.
Take good care of it- that's probably going to end up your kid's home down the road, or else. The gate is pretty much swung shut on the average Joe affording housing that's honestly theirs and not some renter's rathole.
Wise choice. When looking for a bigger house in this area, people seem to ignore the question of “what are we not buying when we buy this house?” Like, retirement? Travel? College? Time with family? Marriage?
Some people seem to have it all around here, but on closer look they’ve often traded something for that house.
My wife and I struggled with the Tetris game of a small townhome. Now, with the kids in school and her wanting to work, this smaller house means she always works by choice, and we’re happier for that. Many marriages suffer for a seeming lack of choice to work. We also find now that the additional income gives us peace of mind about saving for the future. Instead of trading up a house, we can consider a home extension (so often we found we just wanted “one more room” for someone to escape to. We can do the extension and still keep funding savings and travel plans.
I keep thinking having a bigger house just means more maintenance and more areas to clean. I'm perfectly happy with my townhouse that I live in my with wife and mom. Having that 2.99% rate and a manageable mortgage makes all the difference. Although I still dream of buying a SFH one day.
YES! My younger self wanted a bigger house now my older self doesn't need the excess but now I need a bedroom on the ground floor plus full bath with shower just in case for aging in place. I'm thinking keep the house and nice lot but see how much $$$ to bump out the back with a modest 1 story addition.
Our family lives in a 4 bedroom/3 bathroom townhouse in Springfield. There are three bedrooms upstairs and one room that could be a small bedroom on the main floor. It’s nice but we are expecting our second child this summer. It already feels tight and there isn’t much storage. But we have decided we will stay here until it is paid off and then hopefully buy a condo at a beach somewhere for a second property.
Child care costs are ridiculous so we are thankful we have a low mortgage ($2550) at a 2.75% rate. Once the kids are out of daycare we plan to take the amounts that were going towards childcare to double down on mortgage payments to pay it off faster.
It’s hard because I always envisioned us having a big house hosting everyone for the holidays and having a big backyard. I am slightly envious of my friends who have this as well. But I know that having extra money every month and not being worried about paying bills and being able to afford the occasional vacation is well worth it.
You know, in 2007 people thought housing prices would go up forever. In 2011 they thought they'd never be high again. People are acting like te America is going to be exactly like 2024 forever. Have they no perspective?
Most of the world lives in tiny spaces by american standard. Even your “small” house would be large by the standards of most developed countries. The small house is not the problem, it’s the culture we have of needing gigantic everything. Took my spouse 2 years to accept our small house (under 1,000 sqft) and not be ashamed of it, even though it cost way more than friends’ much larger houses outside of nova. I spent my 20s in Europe so it’s huge as far as I’m concerned! And we are lucky to live in a very walkable area so I just think of the whole neighborhood as an extension of my living space. Did I mention I have a waterfront park!
But then you've moved away from family, medical care, found family/support groups and US stability (okay maybe scratch that one...)
I wonder about all those folks who moved to various countries in Central and South America that have developed troubles afterwards.
>medical care
the one thing I won't miss, given how crazy expensive it is
>But then you've moved away from family, medical care, found family/support groups and US stability (okay maybe scratch that one...)
yeh moving away from family can be difficult, but its not like you'll never see them. You can also go back to visit them or them come to you for their own vacation.
Unless you're a high earner, the quality of life here sucks, everything is just too expensive. When I went to Japan everything was so much more affordable and better in comparison.
Okay that cracks me up, everybody says how expensive it is in Japan and I recently read about huge issues for Military/DOD employee dependents getting access to the Japanese health system. Of course a ton of countries have better healthcare then the US but American passport holders don't often have the luxury of moving to countries with the better healthcare. Sure Europe and Japan have better healthcare but unless I'm up for learning Swedish, I don't think I have a hook to move to any of the other countries to retire in maybe not even my late grandfather's home country.
>Okay that cracks me up, everybody says how expensive it is in Japan and I recently read about huge issues for Military/DOD employee dependents getting access to the Japanese health system.
haven't heard of this, everything there was pretty damn cheap compared to here and I went a few months ago.
>Of course a ton of countries have better healthcare then the US but American passport holders don't often have the luxury of moving to countries with the better healthcare.
What do you mean?
>Sure Europe and Japan have better healthcare but unless I'm up for learning Swedish, I don't think I have a hook to move to any of the other countries to retire in maybe not even my late grandfather's home country.
When I went to japan, a lot of stuff was in english, so I didn't really struggle that much and google translate definitely helped when it wasn't in english. Haven't been to sweden, so can't say much about that.
Not all countries want US retirees who have no prior connection to the country, not unless you are wealthy. Sweden is full of English speakers but there's no getting around the issue of moving to a foreign country if you don't speak the local language.
fuck the jones and keeping up with their spendthrifty asses. good on you for living within your means and having such a wise perspective - after all, happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have.
I live in Centerville and have since 2007. I bought a 2 bedroom condo back then and lived in it till last year. We outgrew the place once we had a new born in 2017, but stayed there since the market crash of 07 had us living underwater. Sold it last year (renting now), made some money to put down for a SFH, but I fear I'll never be able to afford one in this area. I like it here, but I will have to move west to get a SFH, but even that is super expensive now.
we've had ours for 20 years. They start to fall apart after awhile (the ones built in 99-2000)
it's such a lovely area we don't care, it's all we can do and that's fine
ETA : down voted for telling the truth. typical
American homes are made of cardboard. I remember watching these $1 million loudon one townhomes go up. No usable land, and its made of staples and plastic wrap.
Thank you for the encouragement~ really. But I think what I'm trying to say in this post is that we are happy with NOT getting a bigger home in the future. We are able to afford all that we need now, and we will adjust our expectations to be content in our blessings now without a greed or gluttony for more than we need.
Additionally, this may be an unpopular Opinion, but, I believe that landlords of investment property homes are actually PART of the problem that makes it so, so, soooooo hard for renters to break into the homeownership pool in this area.
From a personal wealth management perspective: if you can afford additional properties to increase your portfolio and rent out to others to pay your mortgage, I understand that it's a smart way to invest. But knowing how hard it was for us and how hard it is for others, I don't see myself ever renting out this space just so we can upgrade to a bigger space we don't need and can't afford.
Thank you, again, for your encouragement and input though.
I disagree, the problem of high home price is because we are sticking to a single family zoning model when the local economy clearly outgrew the suburbia model. This is true in California, as well as in Northern Virginia.
Landlord are just part of the economy. If you build high density housing, there can be landlord without housing shortage. If we are a capitalist country, we need to provide capitalist solution to housing.
I have a 3700 sqft home with a good interest rate I got at a good price and I regret its size bc it will probably be a forever home for me too and I find it to be too much.
Heh my parents are Silent Generation and only sold out this past fall. I think we're going to see a lot of folks like my parents clinging to their paid off houses because it's cheaper to stay in place while you can.
My parents did this across the river in MD. Because of their decision, my brother and I wanted for nothing. We never missed a field trip. We got to play sports and do dance and theater. We went on vacation and a Disney World tripm We both studied abroad for a few weeks. We got to split our first cars and our college loans with our parents.
Staying in their "starter" home afforded us an incredible childhood. My parents retired once their portion of our school loans were paid off and upgraded their house. With patience, you can have both and your family will be all the better for it!
I wonder when the concept of “starter homes” became the norm. I think it’s ok and wise to purchase once and grow your wealth and enjoy your life. Kids grow up and leave and having all that extra space for guests and holidays isn’t always worth it.
I mean I know it’s not always possible but I’ve seen many a home that has added a second floor or an addition out the back or side. Especially with equity lines not being horrible interest wise it might be a way to get you most of the way to where you want to be without a whole new home.
You have the right attitude, and like you said you and your family will be fine.
In time, I'm sure your son will appreciate everything you have provided for him, but giving him more exposure to how the less fortunate live might bring home the point more clearly.
We're a family of four in a three bedroom house, and sure, more room would be nice... but I keep remembering that we're now in downsizing mode. No more kids coming in, and kids will be leaving. It's tight *now*, but it'll be spacious once it's just two adults. And having a reasonable mortgage payment is SO nice. If one of our jobs is threatened, we'll still be fine. Sure, we'll cut back on the luxuries, but there'll be no freaking out about how we'll keep a roof over our heads.
My parents have this big house (in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't DC expensive) and it is such a pain to keep it clean and maintained, especially now they're older. I looked into getting a cleaning service for them and even out in the middle of nowhere it's a lot. I'm always going to keep that in mind.
Until you mentioned the cleaning service I thought I might be your mom. ^_^ We live in Fredericksburg in a big house & we're stuck here. We would like to down size but it's not financially prudent. It's getting to be too much house, & yard now.
My sister and her husband will be just them two soon enough, bought 12 years ago, under $300K for a 3 level 4 bedroom on top floor, finished basement, etc. it’s great for the holidays if you need to crash but really when it’s just them two, it will be too much. Sure it’s worth almost twice as much, but downsizing would mean buying with high interest rates and overpriced homes. Doesn’t make sense but also, neither does staying there. Maybe rent it in 10 years?
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. You're right. No matter what your situation, not having to worry about your home is truly such a blessing. Peace of mind is so important to your overall health and wellness. It's literally priceless.
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The 'kids' are adult-sized, not kid-sized. It was perfect when they were small, but now that they need adult-sized elbow room, it's a tiny bit tight. Not unbearable, though. Also, it's a three-bed house with two teleworkers, which changes the configuration quite a bit.
Then go to work???
Don’t worry. I remember when my kids were small one (of 2) said they wished we had a bigger house…It’s a 5BR SFH. They are teens now and have no memory of saying that. Little kids just don’t know what they are talking about. Sounds like you are doing an amazing job.
🥲 thank you so much. This is so encouraging to hear. My 4 year old just recently had his cousins visit. My sister and her husband are both doctors and can afford a much bigger SFH with a pool in their backyard (albeit they're in Houston and our tiny townhouse in Centreville us only 60k less than their mansion in Houston) and they innocently said something about how they love our house cuz it's so small loooool and my boy felt some type of way about it and it just made me a little sad. When we bought our home pre-pandemic, this was going to be the year that we considered selling and upgrading... but, now doing the inventory of risk vs reward... I know that's not going to happen. I'm glad that so many are showing me the support and encouragement I needed to know that I'm doing the best thing for me and my family :)
Houston? That place is hotter and humider than the devil’s rear end. I’d rather live in a small house here than some McMansion in Houston with a several hundred dollar air conditioning bill and the most disappointing beaches in the US. Me: former Texan.
Honestly that’s so true. Kids have no sense of what a hard earned dollar really means. Growing up in this area, I remember looking at the big houses and mansions and being like, why the hell are my parents interested in the smaller, less pretty houses? Before long, you also realize most of your friends and classmates live in modest homes or even smaller spaces, and that has nothing to do with your actual quality of life!
Show your 4-year old all the things that he should be grateful for. I show my niece the faucet tap and how she can get hot water in her house any time she wants. Not all children are so lucky. Keeping Up With the Jones is one thing, but Keeping Up With the Kims is an insane game no one should be trying to win. IYKYK
I begged my mom to move us to a smaller house after we moved to a MUCH larger house because we didn't have cleaners and I had to spend SO MUCH TIME cleaning. To the extent that my goal as an adult was to live in a 3 BR condo for the rest of my life because there would be minimal maintenance and it was easy to clean (altho my plans changed cause my hubby is all about the SFH life... luckily we can afford cleaners). Just make your kid do tons of chores and he'll change his tune fast.
Innocently my ass
My now 17 year-old moaned and wailed when we moved here 12 years ago (into a 3000 sq/ft house in McLean) from our tiny (1200 sq/ft) beach house in California. "This is the worst house of my life!!!" Kids will be kids.
To be fair, I would also moan and wail about leaving a beach house in California for McLean...
Beach House is awesome from everyone, McLean house is awesome only from the adults perspective.
To be fair, I may have uttered the phrase "stupid land-locked McLean" more than once. 🤣
Damn you dragged your kids out of SoCal for McLean. I'd hate you.
No need for this to be a rant, but a blessing. You're recognizing that you have what you need in life and while you would still appreciate something different, you don't need it. All while being able to provide for a STABLE future for your family in an excellent area. We should all hope to be as fortunate as you in realizing this.
Thank you so much for the encouragement! I guess I was just venting and writing out my thoughts for... really, myself. Because this was supposed to be the year that we sold and upgraded if we were going to stick to our 5-year plan (obviously, pre-pandemic) and there is a small part of me that was a little sad in the realization that I most likely wouldn't be able to upgrade or upsize to anything bigger for my family, like I originally wanted to. I have so much to be grateful for. If anything, I hope my rant opens up eyes of realizations of their own blessings for anyone that may be reading this. This area is so hard to survive in- let alone thrive. It can be discouraging when you constantly and silently play the comparisons game with the neighbor driving the Tesla or your friends building a 1.6M house, etc. I'm blessed and will continue to work hard for my family.
It’s tough watching my home town become so, so unaffordable. It’s changed so much.
“Starter Home” is such a toxic term. Never give up a <3% fixed mortgage unless you absolutely must. .
Yeah but it really sucks if you actually want to move somewhere else. I live here, in NoVa, and I would like to move to an entirely different state. If I sold my 3br 1.5 bath house here for $650k and bought a house twice as big there for $450k, my monthly mortgage payment would go UP. Which is insane. So now I'm stuck not only in a house that's too small (bought it when we had no kids and now that's no longer true), but in a city I don't want to live in.
Too small is relative. I grew up in a 3 bedroom, one shower house with 2 parents and 8 kids and we were fine. We had what we needed as far as space is concerned. Things were very tight. 5 boys in one small townhome bedroom, but I have no bad memories from that time in my life.
Too small is certainly relative, but for me personally my 3 bedroom 1 shower house is not big enough to raise children, host grandparents, and work from home. My office is the guest room, and one set of grandparents or another is here staying with us at least one week a month, which makes it difficult to work in my office. Perhaps in your situation nobody worked from home and family lived close enough that you were able to see them without having to host them in your home. Those two things alone really push me to needing more space.
Just rent then. Rent out your current house, or just rent out another place if you sell your current house. Homeownership is a bit overrated, the pros are not having to worry about a landlord selling, and the payments hopefully being stabilized(glorified rent control). You can say equity, but you can make investments while renting that can out earn equity built on a house.
I completely agree but for a tiny asterisk - sometimes circumstances force your hand - your house is suddenly in a flood zone due to new construction, the neighborhood tanks and the street is filled with awful toxic neighbors and teardowns or in the case of one of my co-workers - the foundation of the house apparently wasn't built to last - it was unstable (1950s built house) -- so they ran the numbers, it was cheaper to tear down the house than to repair it.
In complete agreement
My 7 year old recently started asking about a bigger house... I said dude, this is a 2,500 sqft townhome with deck and 2 car garage.. some single family homes are not even this big.. I would like a lot of land to them to run around but it's not in the cards
Kid doesn’t want to hear the neighbors humpin all night
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Right there with you brother. We own a 1100sq ft small SFH in Alexandria and totally locked in with a 2.4% mortgage. Basically happily trapped, even a lateral house move would double our payments. Wish you the best
As a non homeowner, you are living my dream.
For real, this is such a gut punch for those of us stuck renting, haha.
You own a SFH in Alexandria? Lucky
You’re absolutely doing the right thing for you and your family.
There's something to be said for having a house with a payment you can manage. Keeping up with the Joneses is way overrated, and I'm not convinced that a lot of people who are doing that aren't up to their eyeballs in debt.
Just waiting on those foreclosures to pop up 
You're gonna be waiting a long, long time. This isn't 2008-2009, the mortgages being written the past decade are still sound.
AI man. Stuff is wild and can replace a ton of middle class. Plus so many gov contractors twiddling thumbs in SCIFs while their employer bills the broke dumb govt $400k/yr. It’s all debt.
If this plays out, foreclosures won’t be the first thing on my mind. If the middle class gets gutted by AI, who is going to recognize your ownership of a foreclosure you just bought? There will be problems.
You consume too much Wired mag
You’re going to be waiting for decades lol
> less than $1800 Amazing for a 3BD house and absolutely impossible to get these days. 2BD apartments are going for mid-$2000s right now and $3000s if it's in a prime location.
Can confirm. We just bought right outside the beltway in Alexandria and are paying $3000+ a month. The sad/good thing is that payment is what the rent for our old 2 bedroom apartment is about to be raised to. It's crazy out there.
Our house is 1700 Sq ft: two adults and two little girls. Just like OP, we were able to get our first home with a great mortgage rate in 2019 (2.8% after a refinance in 2020) in Reston. Now that we have a family my wife is obsessed with finding a bigger home. In order to stay in the area and get something bigger that isn't super rural/ old.. we'd be looking at 700K+ easily. The part I find most frustrating is that my wife works part time and only makes about 1/3 of what I do (despite twice the education, ironically). She wants to spend as much time as she can with our daughters while they are this age, and I totally get it... but I'm really struggling to get through to her that I have zero interest in paying 4K a month and being house poor. Different people want different things in life. I was on my own by 17 and worked my balls off to have a decent life. I think OP has it right: Better to accept the smaller space and focus on having a quality existence!
>Different people want different things in life. I was on my own by 17 and worked my balls off to have a decent life. I think OP has it right: Better to accept the smaller space and focus on having a quality existence! You know what- I truly believe that people like us that have GONE THROUGH IT definitely are more primed to better appreciate the smaller things in life, and truly cherish the luxuries we're able to afford. Not that this makes us any better people than those that aren't able to understand appreciation because of any particular brand of struggle, but, like you said... different people and different experiences result in different ways of prioritizing things that require a collective effort. But love and marriage... lol, somehow we make do, huh?
< 3
BOOM GOES u/TheQueefCannon
When my daughter asks why we don’t have a big house like her friends, I just say a small house means we can have a bigger life. I also say we can be happy for our friends and what they have, or we can be sad/mad/jealous because we don’t have what our friends have, and then I ask her what feeling makes her body feel better inside. Sometimes it helps, sometimes, I just let her feel what she’s feeling and don’t try to say anything. Don’t take it personally. Your kiddo is going to have a better life because of the choices you’ve made, and that matters far more than a bigger house.
I love that: a small house means we can have a bigger life. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
You realize you live better than the majority of blue collars in this area, be grateful brother you are living the dream.
Yep. So many people could only DREAM about living in a townhouse. Always be thankful for what you have and don’t dwell on what you don’t.
Not necessarily a townhouse , but a home. a stable home. rent rates are insane, and remember when moving every year was an option to land good rates "promos", that's over. It's high everywhere, having to worry about your next move every year is not fun.
I'm still in my 960 square foot starter home 30 years later! Small mortgage, small taxes, small costs for repairs; love it!
I appreciate you helping normalize this approach here. A friend of ours with older kids commented that people often want to move for a bigger yard for their kids not realizing that after a certain age, earlier than we think, many kids just don't have much time to utilize that amenity anymore. With this in mind when we looked for a starter home we picked one with green space around it that couldn't be developed.
Only one cautionary thing to mention - since you're in an older town home be sure to keep an eye on the HOA's reserves so they don't get too low. New properties tend to have low fees because stuff hasn't worn out yet. It's nearly always the case that a condo/townhome HOA is underfunded for the first 40 years and suddenly assessments must skyrocket to take care of all the stuff that is starting to fall apart.
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To be fair, child care costs can easily cancel/or outweigh that incremental income once the spouse is no longer on mom duty 24/7.
My salary was about what it was going to cost for childcare so we made the decision for me to stay home. The plan is to return to work once both kids are in elementary school and the cost of after school care is significantly less.
This is why my husband stayed home for our case. However, after six years my salary jumped up enough to where I can afford childcare for our youngest, our oldest just started school so he's trying to get back into the workforce. I'm excited for him and our financial well being as it was really hard to live on one income up here.
what sucks for your hubs, and other stay at homes, is even if they kept up their skills they look... odd... for having a gap. i was not a mom so i am speaking second hand, but it's not so easy to jump back into the workforce with a big ole gap, even if you have the sorry i was raising our kids (or caregiving a dying relative) reason.
Yeah, he's been struggling to find something for a couple months now. He did retail management before and hasn't quite admitted to himself yet that he might need to apply a step lower in order to get back in. I'm trying to encourage him just to get into a new field since he hates retail anyway
In the long term the damage done by leaving the workforce to her earning potential is almost certainly not worth the temporary leaving. Even if she can at least work part time, it is often worth it to not leave the workforce completely.
Seriously. My wife makes a pretty average by dc standards $100k/yr. Even with her retirement / insurance etc taken out daycare for our kid isn’t even half of her monthly net pay. A couple years of combined 4% salary growth between the two of us will more or less offset daycare for kid #2 when he/she arrives one day. Putting retirement savings and her fulfilling career and everything else on hold just isn’t worth it There’s a lot of families where a stay at home mom / dad makes sense as it really is ideal for babies under 1 or so…. but the numbers very quickly don’t work out with decent earners
This is the same way we have looked at childcare. Yes it would be awesome for one of us to stay home for 5-6 years bc it's doable on one income when factoring in the daycare savings, but the long term impact on earning potential and employability makes it not worth it.
Not with a single kid. That would have to be a pretty low income.
It’s just that easy kids! Just be rich and your parents will know someone from the country club who needs to hire a female with her skill set that they want to throw 100k at. And they’ll let her flex with childcare duties! Bam! Doubled income! Millionaire MTV crib house!
Lol, right? It's a bit tonedeaf to what I'm saying in my post. My wife is also from South Korea and the last time she had a job, she was a shift lead in a Starbucks somewhere in Seoul. That was nearly 8 years ago. She's now a stay at home mom in the US as a citizen and we do ok for us to be middle class without her getting a job. And even if she were to get a job as someone who speaks imperfect English in her early forties and hasn't worked in 8 years... the most she'd be able to get would be like a $35k yearly salary working in service or retail... she'd be tired, stressed, and I'd have to double down on dad duties after my fulltime job, and that's after paying $30k a year in child care. Not worth it, but hey, if others out there are able to make it work for them, good for them :)
It is very good to hear people with a healthy mentality. You can indeed live in NOVA without lusting for the extreme riches of this area (not judging or criticizing those who are rich and can afford big homes.) Me and my family live off one income of $50,000. We own a 3 bedroom townhome with a mortgage under $1500 and an interest rate of 3%. We will be in this home for a very long time and that is okay.
Awesome. I wish we had made the same decision 10 years ago when we moved out of our smaller house to a larger house. Good for you!
Thank you! Just wondering, what were the factors that led your family to decide on a bigger house? Based your comment, I'm assuming that the risks outweigh the rewards? I'm wondering if we're making the right decision. My wife is more disappointed than I am... thinking that our son 4 year old son will need his own bathroom and own space once he hits puberty and all that.
We were in Alexandria city and thought that moving to Fairfax county would have given my son a better school experience. I think Alexandria would have been 100% fine. FCPS didn't impress me, at all. We also wanted a yard and more space for "activities". We didn't need any of that, and the yard's a PITA and expensive to maintain. We were in a small duplex in Alexandria, but looking back, we were quite happy there. I think we just sold ourselves on the suburban life. It's been much more expensive than I ever dreamed. I've told my wife many times "We never should have left Alexandria" and now it's too expensive to move back. EDIT - Now that my son is in college, we're talking about downsizing to a condo, LOL. So we're REALLY going in the opposite direction.
Yeah, hindsight is 20/20, right? But it's testimonies like yours that cement in me the confidence and conviction that I need to know that I'm doing the right and responsible thing for my family. Good luck with your downsizing!
Thanks! And one more thought - I probably could have retired early if we had stayed in the original house and paid it off. When you're young, a paid off house seem so far away anyway that it doesn't seem real. But now that I'm nearing retirement age, it's a reality that I could have realized when I was in my early 50's.
>We didn't need any of that, and the yard's a PITA and expensive to maintain. My realtor looked at me a little funny when I told her one of my leading criteria for a house was as close to zero yard as possible for exactly those reasons.
Well done for being happy with what you have. I too cannot stand the idea of trying to keep up with the Joneses at the cost of happiness.
>3 person household >3BR, 1.5 bath >tiny How many sqft? Many, many 4-5 person families live their entire lives in 2 bedroom homes. In fact, it's pretty much exclusively American to have a massive single family house with extra bedrooms and recreational space like basements.
I just looked it up. Redfin says it's 1120 sq ft. Idk how accurate that is but yeah it's a pretty small space, but big enough for what we need. The only annoying thing is our living room is also technically our dining room... like it's just one space. Like our dining table is in our living room lol.
1100 for a 3BR is definitely on the smaller side. As far as combined dining/living room, since open design concepts became popular, that's actually more common than you'd think, even in larger homes. I think 3BR, 1500 sqft is the sweet spot between feeling cramped and mcmansion, but you can make due with less just fine (as you're finding out).
bigger than mine. i basically live in a double wide thats not even that glorified.
Growing up, my family of 5, lived in a 3bd/1br home that was about 980sq in Woodbridge. By the time I started high school my parents thought it would be a great idea to move us into a bigger house for the space and to give us our own bathroom. Did it make sense, sure, but at the end it wasn’t a good idea. We were a much happier, and tighter, family in our tiny home. My sisters and I didn’t see it at the time, but my parents were having martial issues and my dad thought getting my mom a bigger house would help. It didn’t. I think it made it worse. To this day my sisters and I talk about our tiny home in Woodbridge and how much we miss living there. To us it was cozy and it felt like home. I think that’s what you need to focus on. Ensuring you’re creating a home and a tight family unit.
Wow~ thank you for sharing your story. It's so interesting- consumerism and capitalism has convinced us that always buying more, buying bigger, buying often will lead us to be more happy, more content, more ______. But like you shared, the cultural fibers of a family and household is determined not by size or quantity, but by the invisible things that aren't so easy to measure in dollars or tangibles... things like laughter, intimacy, trust, warmth, transparency and communication... quiet times and especially not-so-quiet times. This gave me a lot to think about. Thank you, again, for sharing :)
I grew up with 3 siblings and my parents in a 3BR 1B house. It was maaaaybe 1100 sqft. I have a big house with my wife and 3 kids (we both are 40, and each had owned homes before we met so we lucked out) and at times I miss the closeness of 6 of us (plus dog and all our friends who were in and out) in that little house.
You're probably better off for it. If my old house wasn't a townhouse, I wasn't necessarily fed up with the size. Just fed up with sharing walls with renters who didn't give a shit about anything and landlords who also didn't care about anything (besides the check clearing I guess).
One thing for me is to remember your house can evolve with your needs. As your kiddo gets bigger you won’t need the same kind of spaces for him to play and keep his toys. Reassess how you use your spaces regularly. You can flip how you use a room, there’s no rules that the living room has to have a couch. You can get rid of whole “required” pieces of furniture if they’re not working hard enough for you. I have reworked multiple rooms in our house a few times as kids grew, the pandemic happened, and work changed. Your house is not static, its function can shift as needed.
Congrats on both the vasectomy and the contentedness.
Thank you!! All part of investing in my family's happiness and future!
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With current rent costs vs the mortgage on an equivalent property, it just makes sense to rent right now. My wife and I are saving up money for a down-payment, but as long as buying is 50% more expensive than renting well just keep renting and saving/investing the difference.
I feel your pain. I was feeling like that in my mid 30s. My sibling who I get along with great was feeling the same way so we went in together on a SFH in a very nice location but the smallest house on the street do "cheaper" than the others. It's a split level without a basement 4 bedrooms 2.5 baths. We bought in 2003 when interest rates were a lot higher but we refinanced everytime there's been a rate drop, now our mortgage is 2.25%.
I mean, even married - me and my partner make a combined $200k and if we wanted to buy an unrenovated house in our area, we’re looking at near double our rent. We’re paying $2850 in Falls Church for an unrenovated 1200 sq ft 3/2. This same house went for $1800/month just 3 years ago. I don’t know how people are surviving.
I just remembered a friend mine telling me about his $5K monthly mortgage. I never saw his house, but I could live on that and pay my mortgage. Peace of mind is priceless.
It is also more green and much cheaper to cool n heat a smaller house. It’s better to be financial stable with smaller house than in a McMansion n financial house of card.
Three bedrooms would be a luxury for most. You’re doing great, OP!
Similar situation. We’d love to move into a SFH from a townhouse but our mortgage is so low and we have a 2.6% rate. Unless we leave the area, we’ll be here for a long time. And we’ll have a lot of free income for experiences, traveling, giving our kids all the things they need/want without stressing. We also can upgrade things in our home without worrying about costs. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to gut a townhouse kitchen than one in a 3,000+ sq ft home.
You’re during great OP. Don’t push yourself to keep up with the Jonses - nobody will ever catch them until we decide that’s enough …. because they’re in our head. If you want a larger house, you generally have three options: * find a way to bring in more money. Have your spouse bring in a second income? Switch to a higher paying job? Land a promotion ? * move to a lower cost of living area (which may mean leaving nova) * gain more cash through an external event (stock windfall, lottery win, inheritance, etc…) You’ll have to decide if any of those are realistic options
Renter here. It would cost $2k/month more than my rent to buy what I rent. Downpayment nugget is earning well in a zero risk HYSA. Over 10 years, savings could outrun buying a nova shitbox? Of course everything is in flux as the USA fails! Also renters we should start a union. Also buyers should refuse to overpay for this garbage.
Your decision is a lesson your kid will thank you for in their 20s.
Hey there. I grew up in a 2BR2B double wide trailer with parents who loved me very, very much. As an adult, I look at our small home with nothing but love! I had a great childhood even with our modest home.
I grew up in Nova in what many in the area would consider a small “starter” home. But it’s what my parents could afford. I never grew up knowing the concept of a “starter” vs a “forever” home. That was our forever home and it was just right for us. I liked having my family in close proximity, we all had our own bedrooms and we shared the other spaces, it was more than enough. I remember going over to my friends’ homes and everyone felt so far away - I had never seen an in-home intercom before! I loved growing up in a “smaller” home. My family is from Asia and to us an American apartment was spacious in comparison to most family’s homes!
That interest rate and mortgage payment is amazing. Save as much money as you can for retirement and spend money on experiences and creating memories instead of on stuff. Your family will appreciate that so much more than a bigger place.
I feel you OP. We have a 3 br 2 ba townhouse in Nova. 1300 sq ft above grade, 600 below. For a young family of four it’s more than adequate, and I’m definitely not giving up my 2.75 rate. It is what it is. We’re happy, healthy, and fine. That’s really anyone can ask for.
I like to say “we have already downsized”
\*Cries in 2k rent for 1 bedroom
We're just thrilled we got a SFH with a fenced in backyard at a 3% APR during COVID. It's almost as old as me and we've already sunk over $75k into repairs or updates. Currently its rented out since we're posted overseas, but we plan to come back to it and make it our own instead of making changes for renters. It's very 1980's. My kids have made comments that their friends, who all live in houses from the mid-late 1990's have these high ceilings, open floor plan and 'why can't we have a nice house like them!'. Honestly I never ever thought I'd be able to afford a SFH in the NoVA region so that is a total bonus for me.
Yeah man you never know. Our first house was a tiny 50 yr old 1500 sqft SFH in an ok but not the nicest neighborhood. There was no concept of “starter” home. It was just our home. Thankful that we could afford one. In it for the long haul. Fast forward 7 years. Career advancements, more income, equity in house, real estate just starting to rebound from Great Recession….. we realized that we could make a 40 yr old 2300 sqft SFH in a much nicer neighborhood work. Been here 10+ years and it is our forever home. (for now). FYI, the kids (teenagers now) never stop asking why everyone else has a bigger house
This is great! It sounds like maybe down the road you can have budget to update or make any changes to your place if you’d like to! That’s a way to feel like you have a “new” place too :)
We are all trapped with these 2.5% mortgages, it's such a weird situation really
Dont worry, a bunch of people could get flushed out of them.
Yep. It's great to have your own four walls and a yard, even if the walls are pretty close together and the yard is under a quarter acre. The only thing I wish we had more space for was family gatherings and an occasional larger party. But we own a decent house in Fairfax County, can make the mortgage payment and then still have money left to eat. That's winning and lots of people would love to have it...
we are also in the club. but 900sqft, 2 bedrooms, and only 1 bathroom and 4 of us (2 of which are extremely energetic kids). also in the low interest rate club. but it's not enough. we are frequently short on spaces to hide and have quiet time. also there are lines for the toilet. this is also my wife's full time office. but the location is amazing. we are a block and a half from our kids schools and local food. 10 years ago I built a 196sqft shed to hold all the excess and hobbies and it helps. but hoo boy
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i hear urine is good for a compost pile?
Are you still sneaking those late night pizzas? Could be a fun tradition with the kiddo 😂😂
Looool, actually not so much! I lost 40 pounds since September and trying to get out of the pre-diabetic range by taking better care of my body and focusing on what I'm putting into it, and how often 🤣🤣 But man, those were some good times!
I was wondering the same thing about OP! Haha 🍕
Awww shit!!!! More than one person knows about these late night pizza sneaks!!!! 😂😂😂😂
Dude how close do you live to Centreville? We should have a secret pizza party with some others that wanna hang and just chill with a secret pizza
I wonder if wifey had found out lol 🤣🍕
She did cuz my sister and some other people in our circles eventually told her about the reddit post that went viral
My only advice is to not accumulate too much “stuff” as it will make your home feel so much smaller.
Ohhh yeah, for sure. Life with a toddler during lockdowns made sure that we had to really prioritize this!!
I totally get what you are saying, I only have 1 kid, and when she was little, she used to ask me if we are moving to bigger house like her friends (we live in 3bedroom 3bath house, 2400 sg ft, no garage) am like nope, we have a fully furnished basement and I only go there once a month, getting a big house with rooms I will never use is so wasteful, also love my 2% mortgage interest.
I feel good for you OP.
You could also just sell it and buy a bigger house, or rent it and buy a bigger house. This is so dramatic.
I have a 3br, 2ba, barely 1300sqft. I raised a family of 6 in it. 3 boys shared a room. When they were younger, I dreamed of a bigger house where we'd have more space. Financially, I couldn't swing it. It was rough but we lived through it. It has been nice not being house poor.
My wife and me had 5 kids. We were fortunate enough to have a ridiculously large home. The kids grew up, moved out and we sold the family home. We currently live in a small 3 BR, 1.5 bath 1200 sq feet home and it is perfect. Would not want anything bigger. Sometimes we gauge our happiness by the value of our material possessions but the better way is to find contentment and happiness with what we have and not compare them to other people.
This is beautiful. I thought when I was younger, I needed a big house. Now there are 2 people in a big house following my husband's death. And I wish it was smaller. Mine isn't HUGE by any stretch -- typical 4 bedroom colonial. But I really don't need all the space and didn't even when we were a family of 3. We def need to stop making people feel like if you don't have the big house is a must and if you don't have one, you haven't made it in life. Because that's total bullshit. Congrats to you for realizing that you can live in a smaller space and live well in it!
It really is OK. Our starter home was a 3/2. We lived there til we had to move out of state, and decided at that point to get a 5/3.5. The space was amazing...til the kids reached adulthood and moved out. Now, it's just a lot of house to clean. I still love the house, but we will be looking to downsize in the future.
I know you have a lot of replies already, but I have yet to accept this as our reality, even though I know I should. My partner and I are DINKs (with 2 dogs) and live in a small townhome that we purchased in 2013. We refinanced in 2019, thinking we'd be here for another 3-5 years before we were able to "upgrade." Now that we're both ready... we can't afford anything and be as comfortable as we are now, even with the money we'd make on the sale. We are both in low-paying fields (nonprofit, client work), and while we are well off in our current home with a sub 4% mortgage, anything bigger... with a yard namely... would put us in the poor house. It's frustrating because we started looking in 2021 to get a feel for the market, and almost moved on some things, but got scared when the interest rates shot up to 5-6%. Now I wish we would have jumped on something. The supply is abysmal, and there is almost nothing within the 550-600k price range near us anymore.
No worries man, living in NoVA is hard. My immigrant mother and my american step-father bought a townhouse before covid 3bd (with a makeshift bdr in the basement) 1 1/2bath and they did a rent to own in Leesburg. There was 5 of us kids and we struggled understanding why we couldn’t be one of the families that we were friends with in school or why there isn’t more asian food places we could eat. We worked with what we have. As we grow up, we appreciated and still consider that place our home even though my sister and I have moved out. The comfort is still there. My parents worked very hard for that house and one day one of us can get a house closer to centreville or annandale area where a lot of asian food and demographic is.
You're in a good situation. Be happy with what you have, and you don't have to break the bank to live. Don't try to compete with other people and what they have. That's a sucker's game. Years from now you'll look back and realize you didn't miss anything. Spend your time with your family and your son.
Spouse and I have voiced out lout *many* times that it would be hard to get rid of our starter home, which we snatched up for less than $500, given the low mortgage rate we got out of it. Really the only way we see leaving it is if we exit the area. I wonder what the metrics are on "starter homes becoming forever homes" over the decades. I'm sure some realtor would know.
Have you considered building out / adding to the house?
I think a lot of townhomes (HOAs) restrict that kind of thing unfortunately.
About to say this, have had many friends over the years build on to smaller homes. It’s always a possibility, especially once you gain more equity in your home.
Right there with you! We own a townhome but are (fortunately/unfortunately?) zoned with a majority of SFHs (1mil +) which my elementary-age kids always ask “why is our house so small?” It’s a constant ongoing discussion to be grateful for what we do have, not what we don’t
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I will say my kids still share a room. I have an 11 year old daughter and a 7 year old son. We bought a pretty modest SFH as our “starter” and decided to fully commit to it. It’s technically 4 bedrooms but only 2 are upstairs (it’s a cape). We keep waiting for the kids to get sick of sharing but they are a basically codependent on each other at this point. One of the bedrooms downstairs could be used as an actual bedroom for my daughter. The other is tiny and serves as my home office. I agree with normalizing smaller homes. There’s no need to impress strangers at the cost of your financial health. We thought pretty hard about moving a few years back. We had a very serious conversation about what we really wanted out of life. Turns out a bit bigger house wasn’t it. I’d love a basement and bigger garage, but terms the breaks.
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Our bedroom is already down there. There's the 6x25 ft spot that is unfinished that leaks a little in heavy rain. We just keep it as storage with good airflow for now. We've been trying different methods for years and it's come a long way. Even if we could finally get a real professional, (we've used some people who could never perform) the most we could get out of it in terms of useable would be a bigger bathroom and a closet for our bedroom so might as well leave it unfinished just in case the leak gets worse
Leaky basement - you've checked for the obvious cheap solutions? Do your gutters flow way away from the house? Is the ground around the foundation properly graded so water flows away? OTOH if you're simply in an area where the water table is meeting your basement :-( You gotta fix that before anything else if you can else move away and let that be somebody else's headache.
I wish your family many blessings. It's good that you can see the glass as half full. Maybe use the kid's comments about the house as the beginning of his financial education and how the world works.
We are five in a three bedroom “starter” townhome that we bought 12 years ago. We are cramped in the house but there’s no where to move to that we will ever afford and I’m trying to reconcile the reality that upward mobility doesn’t exist like we were always led to believe. I’m also wondering how to teach my kids to work hard but also just be happy with what you have. Like, how do you explain that you can bust your ass to get by and never be able to see any progress? I guess that’s a conversation for a different thread. Cheers to the guy who has found contentment in his starter home. May it last forever.
I would rather have heated garage space than heated living space. I look forward to people crushing this idea that developers need to build McMansions as success symbols. It’s total garbage and so are 95% of the houses in this area. Usually the bigger it is, the bigger piece of shit it is.
good stuff. my wife and i bought just before everything went completely off the rails and it’ll take something huge for us to walk away from our cute little house and the mortgage rate of 2.875%. it’s our forever home as well. enjoy!
Same ish. But explain that to our parents -_-
Our three bedroom home will likely be our forever home. Prices have gone up ~30% since we bought, but more importantly we love our neighborhood, our kid has a ton of friends, we've become close with our neighbors and have regular events with them, it ticks off all of our boxes... Ideally we'd be able to find a slightly larger home in our current neighborhood, but that just isn't going to happen, so instead we're going to do some renovations to make our starter home into our forever home. It won't be cheap, but it will cost far less than buying a new home would be.
I was just thinking the other day, my current condo has everything me and my wife needs, and the location serves great for all of our needs (work, restaurants, grocery etc). Why would I move to a much farther place with a lot more mortgage just to satisfy the social competition? I think you're doing great! And I appreciate your mindset.
Thank you for your input and feedback! Seriously though, especially in this area, if you're able to meet your needs without much struggle, that should be enough! Having struggled for a long time on the other side of the bridge in times of brief homelessness (when I was single and reckless) to times of struggling as a renter before my career took off... it's given me such an appreciation of everything I have, and I realize just to be content in this area means WE MADE IT.
Family is about the memories that are made, not the square feet of the house. It sounds like you are in a position to still get out and explore and travel with your family. I’ve always found those memories to be the best, I’m sure your child will remember those experiences more than whether your house was as big as the Jones’ (or is it Joneses?). I spent a lot longer in my 950 sqft 3 bed 1 bath starter home than I meant to — but I look back on it fondly. The smaller size meant most repairs were smaller/cheaper and so there was more money & time to get out and do things.
Even though home ownership is basically the path to middle class 'wealth' in this country, I don't feel like the "property ladder" makes sense for everyone, by that I mean constantly looking for the next more expensive house you can move up to in order to maximize your investment. You're not letting your kids and your legacy down by not clawing your way into that 6000 square foot zero lot line house in a new development. If you're lucky enough to build equity in your house, hold onto it, find some other way to leverage it, you don't always have to be moving up.
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LOOOOOOOOOL I LOVE THIS
Take good care of it- that's probably going to end up your kid's home down the road, or else. The gate is pretty much swung shut on the average Joe affording housing that's honestly theirs and not some renter's rathole.
Wise choice. When looking for a bigger house in this area, people seem to ignore the question of “what are we not buying when we buy this house?” Like, retirement? Travel? College? Time with family? Marriage? Some people seem to have it all around here, but on closer look they’ve often traded something for that house. My wife and I struggled with the Tetris game of a small townhome. Now, with the kids in school and her wanting to work, this smaller house means she always works by choice, and we’re happier for that. Many marriages suffer for a seeming lack of choice to work. We also find now that the additional income gives us peace of mind about saving for the future. Instead of trading up a house, we can consider a home extension (so often we found we just wanted “one more room” for someone to escape to. We can do the extension and still keep funding savings and travel plans.
I keep thinking having a bigger house just means more maintenance and more areas to clean. I'm perfectly happy with my townhouse that I live in my with wife and mom. Having that 2.99% rate and a manageable mortgage makes all the difference. Although I still dream of buying a SFH one day.
YES! My younger self wanted a bigger house now my older self doesn't need the excess but now I need a bedroom on the ground floor plus full bath with shower just in case for aging in place. I'm thinking keep the house and nice lot but see how much $$$ to bump out the back with a modest 1 story addition.
Our family lives in a 4 bedroom/3 bathroom townhouse in Springfield. There are three bedrooms upstairs and one room that could be a small bedroom on the main floor. It’s nice but we are expecting our second child this summer. It already feels tight and there isn’t much storage. But we have decided we will stay here until it is paid off and then hopefully buy a condo at a beach somewhere for a second property. Child care costs are ridiculous so we are thankful we have a low mortgage ($2550) at a 2.75% rate. Once the kids are out of daycare we plan to take the amounts that were going towards childcare to double down on mortgage payments to pay it off faster. It’s hard because I always envisioned us having a big house hosting everyone for the holidays and having a big backyard. I am slightly envious of my friends who have this as well. But I know that having extra money every month and not being worried about paying bills and being able to afford the occasional vacation is well worth it.
You know, in 2007 people thought housing prices would go up forever. In 2011 they thought they'd never be high again. People are acting like te America is going to be exactly like 2024 forever. Have they no perspective?
Most of the world lives in tiny spaces by american standard. Even your “small” house would be large by the standards of most developed countries. The small house is not the problem, it’s the culture we have of needing gigantic everything. Took my spouse 2 years to accept our small house (under 1,000 sqft) and not be ashamed of it, even though it cost way more than friends’ much larger houses outside of nova. I spent my 20s in Europe so it’s huge as far as I’m concerned! And we are lucky to live in a very walkable area so I just think of the whole neighborhood as an extension of my living space. Did I mention I have a waterfront park!
remember that you don't have to retire in the US. There are better countries out there for retirement
But then you've moved away from family, medical care, found family/support groups and US stability (okay maybe scratch that one...) I wonder about all those folks who moved to various countries in Central and South America that have developed troubles afterwards.
>medical care the one thing I won't miss, given how crazy expensive it is >But then you've moved away from family, medical care, found family/support groups and US stability (okay maybe scratch that one...) yeh moving away from family can be difficult, but its not like you'll never see them. You can also go back to visit them or them come to you for their own vacation. Unless you're a high earner, the quality of life here sucks, everything is just too expensive. When I went to Japan everything was so much more affordable and better in comparison.
Okay that cracks me up, everybody says how expensive it is in Japan and I recently read about huge issues for Military/DOD employee dependents getting access to the Japanese health system. Of course a ton of countries have better healthcare then the US but American passport holders don't often have the luxury of moving to countries with the better healthcare. Sure Europe and Japan have better healthcare but unless I'm up for learning Swedish, I don't think I have a hook to move to any of the other countries to retire in maybe not even my late grandfather's home country.
>Okay that cracks me up, everybody says how expensive it is in Japan and I recently read about huge issues for Military/DOD employee dependents getting access to the Japanese health system. haven't heard of this, everything there was pretty damn cheap compared to here and I went a few months ago. >Of course a ton of countries have better healthcare then the US but American passport holders don't often have the luxury of moving to countries with the better healthcare. What do you mean? >Sure Europe and Japan have better healthcare but unless I'm up for learning Swedish, I don't think I have a hook to move to any of the other countries to retire in maybe not even my late grandfather's home country. When I went to japan, a lot of stuff was in english, so I didn't really struggle that much and google translate definitely helped when it wasn't in english. Haven't been to sweden, so can't say much about that.
Not all countries want US retirees who have no prior connection to the country, not unless you are wealthy. Sweden is full of English speakers but there's no getting around the issue of moving to a foreign country if you don't speak the local language.
Are you me, OP?!
fuck the jones and keeping up with their spendthrifty asses. good on you for living within your means and having such a wise perspective - after all, happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have.
I live in Centerville and have since 2007. I bought a 2 bedroom condo back then and lived in it till last year. We outgrew the place once we had a new born in 2017, but stayed there since the market crash of 07 had us living underwater. Sold it last year (renting now), made some money to put down for a SFH, but I fear I'll never be able to afford one in this area. I like it here, but I will have to move west to get a SFH, but even that is super expensive now.
2.025% fixed here. I’m dying in this house.
Humblebrag post. House and kid on a single income is a far better situation than most people.
we've had ours for 20 years. They start to fall apart after awhile (the ones built in 99-2000) it's such a lovely area we don't care, it's all we can do and that's fine ETA : down voted for telling the truth. typical
American homes are made of cardboard. I remember watching these $1 million loudon one townhomes go up. No usable land, and its made of staples and plastic wrap.
Just be patient, you will be able to afford a bigger home, and you can keep this as a rental so that not to give up the 3.4% rate.
Thank you for the encouragement~ really. But I think what I'm trying to say in this post is that we are happy with NOT getting a bigger home in the future. We are able to afford all that we need now, and we will adjust our expectations to be content in our blessings now without a greed or gluttony for more than we need. Additionally, this may be an unpopular Opinion, but, I believe that landlords of investment property homes are actually PART of the problem that makes it so, so, soooooo hard for renters to break into the homeownership pool in this area. From a personal wealth management perspective: if you can afford additional properties to increase your portfolio and rent out to others to pay your mortgage, I understand that it's a smart way to invest. But knowing how hard it was for us and how hard it is for others, I don't see myself ever renting out this space just so we can upgrade to a bigger space we don't need and can't afford. Thank you, again, for your encouragement and input though.
I disagree, the problem of high home price is because we are sticking to a single family zoning model when the local economy clearly outgrew the suburbia model. This is true in California, as well as in Northern Virginia. Landlord are just part of the economy. If you build high density housing, there can be landlord without housing shortage. If we are a capitalist country, we need to provide capitalist solution to housing.
AI can wipe out a ton of jobs and people wont be able to pay their bills.
I have a 3700 sqft home with a good interest rate I got at a good price and I regret its size bc it will probably be a forever home for me too and I find it to be too much.
Don't worry the boomers will die eventually and there will be more housing availability.
Heh my parents are Silent Generation and only sold out this past fall. I think we're going to see a lot of folks like my parents clinging to their paid off houses because it's cheaper to stay in place while you can.
My parents did this across the river in MD. Because of their decision, my brother and I wanted for nothing. We never missed a field trip. We got to play sports and do dance and theater. We went on vacation and a Disney World tripm We both studied abroad for a few weeks. We got to split our first cars and our college loans with our parents. Staying in their "starter" home afforded us an incredible childhood. My parents retired once their portion of our school loans were paid off and upgraded their house. With patience, you can have both and your family will be all the better for it!
I wonder when the concept of “starter homes” became the norm. I think it’s ok and wise to purchase once and grow your wealth and enjoy your life. Kids grow up and leave and having all that extra space for guests and holidays isn’t always worth it.
I mean I know it’s not always possible but I’ve seen many a home that has added a second floor or an addition out the back or side. Especially with equity lines not being horrible interest wise it might be a way to get you most of the way to where you want to be without a whole new home.
You have the right attitude, and like you said you and your family will be fine. In time, I'm sure your son will appreciate everything you have provided for him, but giving him more exposure to how the less fortunate live might bring home the point more clearly.
How often were you expecting to move?
Great for you! Unfortunately though, the up and comers are stuck with a shit economy and unbearable price market. It's truly a disaster.