ElizabethT
Full time employment: Posting here.
We are edging closer to relocating from our current single family home, located about 20 miles from the California coastline, to a smaller, lower maintenance townhome that would put us within 4 miles of the coastline. Same county, but a slightly more expensive city then where we are currently, so we'd likely not be pocketing any money in spite of the square footage downsize, but our overall housing run rate would decrease.
Advantages:
- Elimination of outside maintenance costs, which we currently accrue for at a rate of @ $10,000 per year (painting, roof, fencing, hardscaping, patio cover, landscaping, sprinkler system, plumbing from house to the street, gardener)
- Moving away from the noisy street we currently back up to. We bought the smallest house in the nicest neighborhood we could afford back in the day, which meant buying on it's perimeter.
- Smaller yard. Our combined front and rear yards are way too big for our current lifestyle.
- Cooler temps. We'd be moving to a cooler zone within our county, about an 8 - 10 degree swing.
- More upscale city. Our current city is very nice, but our target city is even nicer. Very clean, master planned and just darned pretty.
- Most of our hobbies, clubs and organized activities would transfer without any problem since they are countywide already.
- A gated townhome community would lend itself to our travel-heavy lifestyle
- We'd have a view patio as there are many in the area, and which I've wanted forever. I love the idea of starting our day with coffee, gazing at something, and ending it with wine doing same.
- We'd be living the coastal dream - hiking, biking, kayaking and dining at the coastline on a daily basis.
Cons:
- Fear of changing from the known to the unknown.
- The work involved in making this happen. (Not something I'm overly concerned about, but I think DH is.)
It's my style to emphasize the positives, and de-emphasize the negatives, so I'm aware I might be glossing over the con's, but I really want to want to do this. Meaning, I gotten this far before, then fallen back out of fear that we're making a mistake.
There would be a slight financial advantage in making this move in that our maintenance run rate would decrease. The primary motivation, however, is to move to a beautiful area that would allow us to embrace coastal living. I could see us living out our remaining years in the city we've targeted, but I know there would be a couple of years of sweat equity necessary to develop a set of nearby friends/acquaintances similar to what we have now.
For some reason I pause whenever I get to this point, and I'm not sure why. Would appreciate knowing if others have struggled with making a similar lateral move decision, and what the end results were if so, looking back.
Advantages:
- Elimination of outside maintenance costs, which we currently accrue for at a rate of @ $10,000 per year (painting, roof, fencing, hardscaping, patio cover, landscaping, sprinkler system, plumbing from house to the street, gardener)
- Moving away from the noisy street we currently back up to. We bought the smallest house in the nicest neighborhood we could afford back in the day, which meant buying on it's perimeter.
- Smaller yard. Our combined front and rear yards are way too big for our current lifestyle.
- Cooler temps. We'd be moving to a cooler zone within our county, about an 8 - 10 degree swing.
- More upscale city. Our current city is very nice, but our target city is even nicer. Very clean, master planned and just darned pretty.
- Most of our hobbies, clubs and organized activities would transfer without any problem since they are countywide already.
- A gated townhome community would lend itself to our travel-heavy lifestyle
- We'd have a view patio as there are many in the area, and which I've wanted forever. I love the idea of starting our day with coffee, gazing at something, and ending it with wine doing same.
- We'd be living the coastal dream - hiking, biking, kayaking and dining at the coastline on a daily basis.
Cons:
- Fear of changing from the known to the unknown.
- The work involved in making this happen. (Not something I'm overly concerned about, but I think DH is.)
It's my style to emphasize the positives, and de-emphasize the negatives, so I'm aware I might be glossing over the con's, but I really want to want to do this. Meaning, I gotten this far before, then fallen back out of fear that we're making a mistake.
There would be a slight financial advantage in making this move in that our maintenance run rate would decrease. The primary motivation, however, is to move to a beautiful area that would allow us to embrace coastal living. I could see us living out our remaining years in the city we've targeted, but I know there would be a couple of years of sweat equity necessary to develop a set of nearby friends/acquaintances similar to what we have now.
For some reason I pause whenever I get to this point, and I'm not sure why. Would appreciate knowing if others have struggled with making a similar lateral move decision, and what the end results were if so, looking back.