Poll: Did You Retire in your Most Expensive Home?

[Mdlerth]

Maybe not forever, but for probably 20 years

We recently bought our retirement house, although we haven't yet retired or sold our main home. But the retirement house is on a lake in a rural area, which is what we wanted. So in the meantime before we FIRE, it will be a vacation home.

It's more expensive than our main house, but not outrageously more. It also has more bedrooms so we can easily accommodate guests, but it's just remote enough that we don't expect to attract a constant invasion of visitors.

I'm not sure I'd call it a "forever" home. I'd be It won't surprise me that when/if we hit our 80s, we might move again into assisted living. But that still gives me two solid decades in my ideal location. Hard to beat that.

 

[T-Minus]

Our retirement home was about 15% more than our most expensive house (inflation-adjusted) cost us to buy. However, due to a move to a LCOL area, our expenses (insurance, property tax, ihncome tax, home maintenance, etc.) have actually gone down about 10%. Also, our previous home had appreciated in value almost 60%, so we were able to pull money out in the process. We are now in the negotiation phase of “increase standard of living vs. reduce risk” discussions... Likely will be a little of both.

 

[Willers]

If you bought a second home in retirement, use total value vs prior home.

For those who traded up $ wise for your forever home/homes, any regrets?

Yes on the poll. Our current house was 20% more than any previous home. As I stated in an earlier thread, we moved to a relatively HCOL mountain town and that's what was required to get the home we wanted. No regrets at all and, in fact, our budget was actually 50% more than any previous home (in your range). We looked at other areas that had lower housing costs and they just weren't where we wanted to be. It wasn't an easy decision to spend what we did, but the numbers worked so we did it.

For us it all hinges on "what will make our retirement a happy one?" This was a requirement to answer that question positively. It sounds like this will for your DW. That seems pretty darn important.

I bet once you pull the trigger and look back in a few years, you'll see it a non-event. That was certainly my experience.

 

[audreyh1]

I never bought a forever home.....

 

[MissMolly]

Still in the same house we bought 23 years ago (this month!). No plans to move. Will re-think everything if/when we need some sort of assisted living.

 

[Dash man]

We bought our main home 17 years ago and have no plans to sell. If we have trouble with stairs we may have to move. But since retiring we’ve bought a Florida condo and a Jersey Shore home, each about the same value of our main home. The condo is best suited for getting around without stairs, but is not very close to any family. So there may be another change sometime in the future.

 

[FIREd]

I am getting ready to buy my "forever" retirement home. It will be the smallest yet the most expensive of the 3 homes I have purchased over my lifetime.

 

[Willers]

I never bought a forever home.....

That too. We have lived in two homes that we originally thought we'd live in forever. One was destroyed in an environmental accident (a very interesting story). The other had ongoing maintenance costs that eventually turned us against staying.

We never refer to our current home that way now because I'm sure it won't be our last.

As one of my wise relatives said after the demo of the first house mentioned, "it is just a house. Never love what can't love you back."

 

[COcheesehead]

Our new house will be slightly less than our house we recently sold, but it will be in a LCOL area so in relative terms....

 

[6miths]

We are still in our 'family' home which was purchased 20+ years ago. We plan to downsize maybe in 5 years and the new place will be 30-50% the size but price will be similar to selling price for current home. Selling price of current home will be 3-4x purchase price so the new place will be much more expensive than anything previous.

 

[albireo13]

How many are ending up with a mortgage, or a larger mortgage, after doing so?

 

[Mdlerth]

A house is a building, a home is where people live

Since retiring we have put more than $150K into our little house, which probably increased its value by $0 ��. It’s what we want...

I'm inserting a brief "Well done" here. Over the past four decades I probably kissed a similar amount goodbye with no increase in value.

Having recently run the house-buying gauntlet, I grew increasingly impatient with the real estate industry perspective on housing as an investment instead of as a home. What YOU want in your residence is what counts.

I've known plenty of people whose first priority in buying a house is resale value. They gauge every home improvement on the basis of getting their money back out when they sell... which they do frequently. They also keep the house in magazine-cover perfection at all times so if a chance for profit comes they're always ready. Over a lifetime they probably do end up financially better off.

But at the cost of a lifetime's worth of inhabiting a museum, it's too expensive for me. All the houses I've owned have sheltered many kids and pets and cars being restored and science fair projects gone wrong. Our home improvements were to make the property more useful, not more valuable. Those poor dwellings all bore more than a few scars - cosmetic defects mind you, but defects nonetheless. No telling how much we dropped on fixing boo-boos during these 38 years. But we did an awful lot of living, sometimes astonishingly intense living.

If all we'd been concerned with was resale, we'd never have LIVED in those houses at all. That would be sad...

 

[kcowan]

We upsized 21 years ago and retired 15 years ago. So far so good. While it was a stretch at the time, it has become easily within our budget now. So glad we made the move.

Go for it. Worst case could be a reverse mortgage!

 

[kimcdougc]

How many are ending up with a mortgage, or a larger mortgage, after doing so?

+1

 

[W2R]

For those who traded up $ wise for your forever home/homes, any regrets?

NO...….. none!

As you all know by now, I love my Dream Home and it adds to my level of happiness every single day. I guess it cost about 118%-120% of what I got for my previous home. I haven't had a mortgage since 2006 because I am one of those wild and crazy "pay off the mortgage" people.

Trading up is like other big purchases; for example, a new car. I doubt many would regret buying a new SUV. The difference in price when I bought my Dream Home was less than half the cost of a new Escalade; I guess maybe around the cost of a Highlander.

The first home my late ex and I owned, cost 27% of what my Dream Home cost. That was in San Diego but it was also back in 1979. Inflation is a big factor in this discussion, it seems to me, as is location. Zillow says that first home is now worth twice the cost of my Dream Home. It was a horrible, tiny home and not worth two cents to me at this stage in my life. Looking at it on Zillow, I am so glad I don't have to live in it. Back then we thought we were really "uptown" to even be homeowners at all.

One reason I have no regrets for trading up here in New Orleans in 2015 is that my Dream Home costs about the same for utilities, lawn service, and other expenses, as my prior home. Property tax is higher since the assessment got bumped up to my purchase price. But in general, the expenses may be a little higher but are at least in the same general range as before, and I am not having to pinch pennies to make ends meet.

 

[Cobra9777]

We upsized significantly from our LBYM house to our current house when the kids were 15 and 12. That was 14 years ago; we retired 5 years ago. It was our dream house at the time. Not sure if it's the "forever" house. Our intent was to downsize after ER. But for now, we've made the decision to stay, probably for 10-15 years. We're still renovating to suit our needs and wants, without concern for resale value.

So in a way, without even moving, we traded up significantly from what had been our intended retirement housing situation. No regrets. We like having the space to accommodate our hobbies. We like having space for the kids and grandkids to stay over. Grandkids love the pool, gameroom, canoeing and fishing in the pond. Location is good. Neighbors are quiet. Lots of maintenance, but that just provides an outlet for my DIY entertainment.

 

[FI_RElater]

we’d downsized in our “retirement home” (probably not a “forever home” as we expect to go to something else once about 75, to not have maintenance problems)

the other house just before was much larger atrium ranch (roof took 43 squares of shingles, glad it was insurance that paid for it)... house prior to that was just a bit smaller than that
the last house was pricier... ended up with this house paid off and getting extra $$ towards retirement; put a bit into this house already, this next year we will probably dump more towards improvements for us (not looking at resale)


... and T- minus
while I didn’t see anything in the film festival I wanted to see this year, you might.... they said that they still need volunteers

 

[RobbieB]

I estimate we'll have 60 grand in the home improvements by the end of next year. Which is about 15% of the value of the house, so not bad at all. Since nothing has been done except plumbing improvements since I've owned it, it is all sorta of "deferred maintenance" and the house will look brand new as well as updated.

 

[PatrickA5]

We've been thinking about making one last move (we're 60) into a new construction house, but who knows if we'll ever do it. We currently have a nice 3,500 sqft house on a greenbelt that is too big for just the two of us (kids are gone). There's a new neighborhood going in a few miles away that is what the builder calls "luxury downsizing". The houses are smaller (2-3 BR, 1,800sqft, all one story), but the interiors are luxurious. They have very small lots that the HOA keeps up. They aren't cheap - the prices are actually more than what our - twice the size - current house is worth. Doesn't really seem worth the cost, but it would be nice to have everything on one floor as we get older. We've only been in this house for 6 years and in the house before that for 20 years. If we do move, it'll be the last one, at least until assisted living.

 

[Bestwifeever]

.....

I've known plenty of people whose first priority in buying a house is resale value. They gauge every home improvement on the basis of getting their money back out when they sell....

+1. We had the house’s exterior painted and minor siding carpentry repairs done in early summer and people asked us if we were selling. Um, no, we live here and it needed painting.

 

[54andchange]

Our new house will be slightly less than our house we recently sold, but it will be in a LCOL area so in relative terms....

....it seems like a mansion, with spacious land. +1

 

[Midpack]

I hope you are joking that your current house is a dump.

No, we hate our current house even after about $80K in reno/upgrades over 26 years. Bought it for resale, never expected to be in it for so many years.

Of course we lived in our favorite home for less than 3 years as I was transferred...

 

[tb001]

Not yet retired, but we expect to retire in the next 5 years or so. We recently moved into our 'next 20 yrs' home, though my DH is saying they'll have to carry him out before he moves again... Cost was about the same as the home we sold, but sq ft and lot doubled.

We're still figuring out the impact on our annual expenses--some up and some down. Overall I think it will be a slight increase. I would have preferred buying something more modest and sticking the $ in savings so we'd be at 100% today, but DH wanted something nicer. My best guess is it means we need to increase our nest egg by ~15% in order to make it 'easy' financially. Will have to see what the next few years brings with the market and expenses.

All that said, it's pretty incredible. We love the location far more than we expected and the house itself is a great fit for us. While its a lot bigger, we actually use far more of the space than we did on our old house.

 

[RE2Boys]

At the time of my retirement 18 years ago, we were in our "dream" home that we had custom built in anticipation of our sons' births.
But things happen. Due to a elderly parent situation, we ended up selling and moving to another state and purchased a smaller (from 2800 to 2000 sq ft home but gained a basement) less expensive older home and have been here 14 years. Along the way we did a lot of updating but decided to stay as schools were good and very close, also shopping.

 

[Walt34]

After retirement we bought a larger, nicer home but it did cost less than the old house. Generally, houses in WV are cheaper than ones in the Washington, D.C. area.