Down, up, right-size

[ronin]

Been house hunting since Feb. Low inventory, highish prices and all that is the reality around here. Saw a ton of homes, old ones that hadn't been fixed up,, old ones that had, (what were they thinking) and one out of it all that checked most of our criteria boxes.

Well, except it is bigger than what we had in mind originally, and is costing nearly $80k more than what we started out looking at.

We are going from a 1200 sq ft, 2 bed, 1.5 bath home built in the 40s on 1 acre of what is still zoned agricultural, read horses and el norte madness to 2560 sq ft, 4 bed 3 bath just remodeled quite well on .25 acres in a nice, quite neighborhood in the nearby hills.

Now we pull up roots planted 35 yrs ago, almost to the day, and adjust to a new environment. I can adapt, I am flexible, , repeat to myself.

This may not be the final place we settle, but it should work out nicely for now.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

We upsized , i was 50 years old. We went from I think 440 sq feet apt to a 2660 house. 1 bathroom to 4. Your gonna dig the extra bathrooms, I have 1 on every floor and no more waiting. It was a huge adjustment for me. Im a very social guy, i go out for a loaf of Italian bread it takes me 45 minutes and the store is on the next block. I yap to everyone. The new place I had to start all over again making friends. We have a dog, so i sit on the stoop a lot saying hello to people as they pass by. It breaks the ice so to speak. Just last night the bride sent me to the store for something, she said "take the car" i need it now. "Dont start talking to everyone" haha so im back into my groove here.

 

[euro]

What made you decide to upsize after that many years? Most folks (including myself) tend to go the other way. Are you moving within the same community or is this the BIG move?

 

[ShokWaveRider]

This is a REALLY big dilemma for ME. We currently have ~3,300sqft. We DO NOT need that much. We only use the downstairs which is a lot bigger than upstairs at around 2,700sqft, but we use ALL of it except the dining room all the time. The upstairs is a self contained guest suite that gets used once or twice as year.

We currently use: His/Her Studies, Great Room, Kitchen, Breakfast Room/Area, 2 Bathrooms, Master, Laundry Room & Florida Room (OK we could do without that, it is about 350sqft)

I do not know if I am ready to downsize yet. But probably could do fine with 2,400sqft.

 

[Dawg52]

A couple of years ago I up sized from a 1100 sq ft house to a 1700sqft one. The smaller one was big enough but just in a bad neighborhood. I do like the extra space tho.

 

[W2R]

Congratulations on your new home! Believe me, of all people I can appreciate how wonderful it can be to acquire a better home. My dream home has changed my life for the better in so many ways.

What matters more than the square footage to me is how the space is arranged in the house. Sometimes a larger house doesn't feel that much larger, especially if you have a lot of closet space, laundry room, pantry, and so on, using up your square footage. Also it will be nice to have less yard to mow and/or care for, I would think.

I personally have 1533 sf, although I would probably be just fine in 800-1000 sf. But hey, the extra square footage doesn't do any harm. With the layout I have, it just stays there out of the way and it's nice to know I have a little extra. Much of it is closet space; this house has tons of closet space and I think you can never have too much. Also it's nice to have an unused room separating me from the street noises and so on. I just use it as an entry hall.

 

[TeeRuh]

What matters more than the square footage to me is how the space is arranged in the house. Sometimes a larger house doesn't feel that much larger, especially if you have a lot of closet space, laundry room, pantry, and so on, using up your square footage.

+1. We just moved from a 2 story townhome to a one story house. (DW has had a year of health issues.) Though technically we upsized the fact that it is a one story and has a "great room" makes it seem smaller. We definitely "downsized" on the number of rooms. It also doesn't hurt that we moved from a 40 year old place to a brand new one.

t.r.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

What made you decide to upsize after that many years? Most folks (including myself) tend to go the other way. Are you moving within the same community or is this the BIG move?

The apt started out really cheap, I think $550 a month included all. We were comfortable, I was 10 minutes to my job. We knew everyone, I got into a routine. After I retired i realized how small it was (440 sq ft I think), and said ok we can upgrade if we want. We looked around crunched numbers for a few years and boom, dream home was built. i think we could have done it earlier, but i worry about the what if too much. Its in a way better neighborhood. When we left the bride was crying and one of the neighbors who was a huge jokester played the theme from the Jefferson's "Movin on up". We were all renters in that place, and when times were dull we would bash our landlords over a few adult beverages.

 

[ronin]

What made you decide to upsize after that many years? Most folks (including myself) tend to go the other way. Are you moving within the same community or is this the BIG move?

Spare room started out as a second bedroom but morphed into the exercise machines, sewing machine, book cases, file cabinets, room for everything except for a place for a visitor to stay. Now, there are 2 master bedrooms with their own bathrooms and showers. The second master will be the new and improved fitness center for my wife! The other 2 rooms are still pretty large so one will be the guest bedroom next to a full bath in the hallway and the other will be the office. The living portion has a large open configuration living, dining and family room all with a really big modern kitchen open to that space with a bunch of windows looking out toward the San Gabriel mountains. Separate laundry area in the house and a 3 car garage, with my mountain bikes getting their own parking space. So while the sq ftg is big, the house feels more like a picture that has been enlarged so that we will finally have some elbow room, rather than a mansion with wings of rooms never used.

Congratulations on your new home! Believe me, of all people I can appreciate how wonderful it can be to acquire a better home. My dream home has changed my life for the better in so many ways.

What matters more than the square footage to me is how the space is arranged in the house. Sometimes a larger house doesn't feel that much larger, especially if you have a lot of closet space, laundry room, pantry, and so on, using up your square footage. Also it will be nice to have less yard to mow and/or care for, I would think.

Thanks, this is it exactly.

I'm asocial so my adjustment may also include learning how live with neighbors. Really don't see many people in our current home once we are in and the gate is locked. Those that are around tend to not speak English, which is OK, run horses in circles upwind of us and send the dust storm over our house every day, or deal drugs. And then there is the skateboard park 2 doors down and the tweaker(s) that uses the neighborhood homes as his shopping mall almost every week. Won't miss any of that. Will miss my 80 something yr. old Fuerte avocado tree, but the new home is only about 5 miles away and all these hills were part of the old giant avocado grove back in the day. There a couple of younger trees on back hillside of the new place, Hass I think. The hillside drops down past the back yard and is terraced so I will have a place for my inner urban farmer to work.

 

[HFWR]

My current digs, a 1650sf "ranch", is about the right size, though I could do smaller. I'd really like to shed the lawn maintenance, and have something more lock-n-go friendly, but the condos/townhomes around here, at least the ones acceptable to me, are dramatically more expensive, first to purchase, and then the association fees, than my PITI plus mowing service. Still tbd...

 

[RunningBum]

Spare room started out as a second bedroom but morphed into the exercise machines, sewing machine, book cases, file cabinets, room for everything except for a place for a visitor to stay. Now, there are 2 master bedrooms with their own bathrooms and showers. The second master will be the new and improved fitness center for my wife! The other 2 rooms are still pretty large so one will be the guest bedroom next to a full bath in the hallway and the other will be the office. The living portion has a large open configuration living, dining and family room all with a really big modern kitchen open to that space with a bunch of windows looking out toward the San Gabriel mountains. Separate laundry area in the house and a 3 car garage, with my mountain bikes getting their own parking space. So while the sq ftg is big, the house feels more like a picture that has been enlarged so that we will finally have some elbow room, rather than a mansion with wings of rooms never used.

Sounds great! I upgraded quite a bit shortly before ER. After my divorce I was in a near starter home for a few years, and while there was nothing wrong with it, I could afford to do a lot better. I overdid it, but enjoy it every day and have no regrets.

 

[Teacher Terry]

5 years ago I got sick of cleaning a big house so we downsized to 1 story at 1400 sq ft. My DH also has knee problems so all the steps were bothering him. As we live where water is always an issue we put in astro-turf. DH likes that he does not have to mow. Many people do xeroscaping here but our dogs like grass.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

5 years ago I got sick of cleaning a big house so we downsized to 1 story at 1400 sq ft. My DH also has knee problems so all the steps were bothering him. As we live where water is always an issue we put in astro-turf. DH likes that he does not have to mow. Many people do xeroscaping here but our dogs like grass.

Seems every dog in my neighborhood likes my grass too. It must have went out over the bow wow news, HEADLINE " BCG got sod installed, everyone with astroturf go to his front lawn."

 

[Teacher Terry]

BCG: my dogs like astro-turf as much as the real thing. Sounds like your neighbor dogs are fussy)

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

BCG: my dogs like astro-turf as much as the real thing. Sounds like your neighbor dogs are fussy)

hahahahaha

 

[Scuba]

We have moved quite a few times due to job transfers, but we "right sized" for us when we moved back to So CA. Got a condo on the beach, about 1600 sq ft. We like the lock & leave aspect, and HOA dues are about the same as we were paying for lawn service, exterior maintenance, trash service, lawn watering, etc. in the SFR we previously owned. We could be happy in an even smaller place if need be. I will always be willing to trade off space for location and views.

 

[Danmar]

We upsized in retirement by buying two more homes. This more than doubled our total square footage. We wanted to be able to move around between very different Envireonments. Obviously at some later date we will downsize. A little unusual for sure, but fun, no regrets,

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We have moved quite a few times due to job transfers, but we "right sized" for us when we moved back to So CA. Got a condo on the beach, about 1600 sq ft. We like the lock & leave aspect, and HOA dues are about the same as we were paying for lawn service, exterior maintenance, trash service, lawn watering, etc. in the SFR we previously owned. We could be happy in an even smaller place if need be. I will always be willing to trade off space for location and views.

A 1600sqft condo on the beach in SoCAL. Beyond a lot of our budgets, can you give us a rough location in SoCAL? Hopefully not Laguna Beach..... PS I lived in MV for 15 years before moving to FLA.

 

[flyingaway]

I like the bigger house, but I don't like the bigger property tax.

 

[Scuba]

We upsized in retirement by buying two more homes. This more than doubled our total square footage. We wanted to be able to move around between very different Envireonments. Obviously at some later date we will downsize. A little unusual for sure, but fun, no regrets,

We would probably have done this if we had a much larger portfolio, but decided our freedom from work was more important to us. We also enjoy changing environments but choose to do it by renting properties in other locations vs owning multiple homes. We used to own 3 homes and the overhead was very expensive. Plus we enjoy the flexibility of being able to easily change where we spend time.

 

[Scuba]

A 1600sqft condo on the beach in SoCAL. Beyond a lot of our budgets, can you give us a rough location in SoCAL? Hopefully not Laguna Beach..... PS I lived in MV for 15 years before moving to FLA.

Between LA and OC, not cheap but one of the best value/least expensive beachfront communities. Much less expensive than Laguna or Manhattan Beach.

 

[kcowan]

We have a 3300 sq.ft. Ph that is 3br, 2bath with sunroom and includes a 1300 sq.ft. patio in that sq.ft. It was just right with our 2 cats. Now we are empty nesters. Looked at downsizing last year and took a pass.

Ten years ago, we acquired a snowbird condo 2br, 2bath at 1750 sq.ft. additional.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

We are at about 2200 square feet and I think it's about 200-400 too much. It's just the DW and me so many of the rooms aren't used. We haven't eaten in the formal dining room in over a year!

I have known several folks that REALLY upsized after all the kids moved out and I never really understood that thought process. To each their own, right?

 

[Danmar]

We would probably have done this if we had a much larger portfolio, but decided our freedom from work was more important to us. We also enjoy changing environments but choose to do it by renting properties in other locations vs owning multiple homes. We used to own 3 homes and the overhead was very expensive. Plus we enjoy the flexibility of being able to easily change where we spend time.

I understand and certainly can see your point of view. We are very lucky to be able to do this and it turns out that I really value having control over my envireonment. Don't like to find new places to rent or move my stuff around. Like my cars in the garage and my clothes in the closets. Like my decor and art. Agree it's very expensive and can be time consuming. Certainly not for most people. But I like it.

 

[O2Bfree]

DH and I are in a 1500 sqft place with 3 smallish bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a 2-car garage, and a parking pad for our camper van. It's just about right, enough space for all our stuff but not too much, as we don't like to accumulate too many unused items. That aspect really came in handy when my folks downsized!

One thing I would like to downsize though is the back yard. We're on a double lot with many big shrubs and some trees in the back, so several weekends a year are dedicated to trimming and clean up. It is nice to see from the living and dining rooms though, like looking out over a pleasant green park.