Upstate NY Nesties
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Is your house "for life"

I saw this question asked a while back on one of the baby boards, and it's an interesting question.

Do you think your house could be one you could live in for life?  Or at least til the kids go to college/retirement?

I have issues with my house.. we'd like a larger yard, bigger house, finished basement (not sure if ours is "finishable")... I guess mostly I need more space, but who knows if it would happen.  I do love it here, but the ongoing renovations are taking an emotional toll on me as well, so it's hard to tell if I would want to stay here if the house was completely done.

Re: Is your house "for life"

  • We bought our house back in November 2008 knowing we'd be there for the long haul.  It's a 4 bedroom but we don't use most of them since we don't have any kids yet.  We knew we wanted to start trying for a baby a year after we got married so it didn't make sense for us to buy a house just to have to move 2 years later.  It is a house that is too big for us now but we hope to fill it soon and plan on staying there until we need to downsize (after our kids go to college or we retire).
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  • Well we *thought* ours was, but then we had to sell it and move!  It was on the smaller side - three bedroom ranch, but we had a really nice finished basement, thanks to my husband, so it wouldn't have been too small even with kids.  Sometimes I panicked about having teenagers there, but we would have made it work.  Oh well.  

    With everything we went through having to sell our house in a poor market, I can't imagine buying another house with the thought of it being only temporary.  When we buy again out here, it'll mean we're staying for good, unless work has other ideas.   

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  • We bought it with the intention of it being our forever home but with DH's job we may have to move at some point in the future so we can't say for sure.  It does have everything I want in a house.  Even if we won the lottery I don't think we would move (but I would have a ton of work done!).
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  • We love our house, especially with all the renovations we have done (kitchen, deck, roof, etc...) and energy efficient improvements (new windows, insulation and solar panels, which will happen in the next few months)...it will be hard to leave this house.  But, if the door of opportunity opens....which might be sooner then later since dh has 2 job offers in the making, one here in NY and one in FL, we will have to sit down and make some serious decisions.  

    If we move to FL, I will be sad to leave this house, it's almost perfect for us...but, I have always wanted to move back to the south.  It will be a hard decision to make.

  • We are always on the fence about moving. Our home is pretty good for us, 3 beds. It would be tight if we have 2 children, and at that point, we would probably move. We have the nicest house in the neighborhood so we don't want to put any more $ into it.
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  • Interesting question. There is so much that we want to do to our house, and much of it I believe we'd need to do before selling anyway.

    As much as I'd *like* a bigger/nicer house right now, our current plan is to live here until we relocate out of the area (which, hopefully, won't be until retirement)

    Of course, situations change so who knows. Our mortgage payment is such that if one of us lost our jobs the other could swing it alone for a while, so that sense of security is worth it right now to me.

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  • No way. I bought this house when I was 21, before DH and I were even really serious. It's a 1100 sq foot ranch, so it's not too tiny... but the 3 bedrooms are small and it's only 1 bath (which I HATE!) After having Evan it's seems smaller! Plus it's in the city, and we don't want to send DS to Buffalo schools, or pay for private school.

    We plan on putting our house on the market next spring or early summer.

  • Yes, we bought it to go both ways though. It's a 3BR, 1.5 bath so ideally it's too small but my husband's business is construction, so we can put an addition on at cost so for us it was worth it. The neighborhood, school district, etc is very ideal for a family. Once we add a mudroom, master bed/bath and finish the planned updates, I know we can stay here forever. I hate painting and moving so I really don't plan on doing it again!
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  • our house is the house that both DH and his mother grew up in.. its not terribly old (1950's), and I love it... it is 4 BR, 2BA....

    ... only downside, is we dont know if we want to stay in SYR forever.... i guess I dont know where we would ever go though....

  • Nope!!  We are managing our debt and have a four year plan.  We are praying that the housing market will improve in that time so that we can sell and get the heck out of dodge!  Our plan - build a brand new house in North Carolina.
  • Not so sure. We went into it as we will buy our forever home the first time around. Oh the thoughts of the young and inexperienced at life. hahaha.

    We've had a decent amount of issues which made it take us awhile to actually start liking the house and enjoying the house. 

    I'm not super crazy on the floor plan and if another house came along with all that we like with minimal changes and the market was good for selling a house....then I am sure we would consider it.

    But until then...not point wasting time thinking about! :o)

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  • when we moved to buffalo I wanted my forever home.  I am sick of moving. We moved 5 times in 4 years.  This is the house I want to be in forever.  It has everything we were looking for.
  • I really WANT to stay here forever and ever and can't imagine ever moving.. but this house is small.. It will be a challenge to fit one more baby in it, and we want at least 2 more ideally. So we'll see.. maybe we can add on.
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  • We are definitely in our "forever home".  It's 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, finished basement, huge fenced in yard.  The bedrooms are kind of small, but we can manage as we only plan on having 2 kids.   Plus, it bumps right up against my in-laws land and they have about 30 acres so there's lots of privacy.  Now to finish the renovations.......
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  • We just sold our house.  When we bought it 3 1/2 years ago our plan was to stay about 5 years.  However, we found a house we really love and are moving the end of March.  This new house will be the one we stay in, it has what we want 4 bedrooms, finished basement, fenced in for our dog.  And moving is such a hassle and I want this to be the last time.
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  • When we bought our house we bought it knowing that we'd want to buy something bigger in the future.  It's a 3bdrm, 1 bath cape with a semi-finished basement, fenced in yard, deck with awning, and a good floor plan.  Our house has everything with need with a few extras.  Right now we can afford our mortgage and household payments on one salary which leaves me the opportunity to stay home for a bit with the baby if I want to.  We certainly have our dream house in mind but unless we win the lottery we'd need 2 incomes to afford it with our current lifestyle/spending.  We'll see what happens....the plan right now is to reevaluate after 5 years or so. 
  • When we bought our first house we bought it knowing we would never move again so get what we want now.... which is exactly what we did, we got everything we wanted, 3 beds, 2 full baths, finished basement, fenced in really big backyard, deck didn't have to do much except paint when we moved in.  WE don't plan on any children together, I have a 12 year old step son who visits every other weekend and there is more than enough room.  Plus I am not one for moving. 
  • OMG No, No, NO!  My house is waaaaay too small.  I bought it about  6 years ago when I was single.  It was perfect for me.  Just me.  Then came DH and his stuff.  And now Ryan and all of  his stuff.  It's about ready to explode!  lol

    We have to save up again for another as our previous downpayment is now smiling in my siggy - and worth every penny!  ;-)

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  • We could live there for life, but I would ultimately like one more bedroom and bathroom (we have a 2 bed, 2 bath condo).

    We are not having kids, but I do have a step daughter that stays with us on college breaks.  It would be nice to have a guest bedroom also.

  • Absolutely not! Even if by some really weird spark of fate we stayed here in NY there is no way we would stay in this house.  DW hates it and I'd kill for a fenced in yard.  It's not a bad house by any means.  3bd/2.5 bath, finished basement, kitchen, dinning, living rm, and den.  It's just ideal for us.
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  • I think ours very well could be. It doesn't have a finished basement type of area (I'm thinking teens) but I grew up in a house without that too.

    It has enough beds and baths for the 2 kids we'd like to have, and space downstairs for family holidays/kid birthday parties, etc

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  • heck no...I do like my house and we're doing improvements and it keeps getting better but I hate that its split level...

    we keep looking- and we hope to find an "upgrade" by the time baby 2 is here (which is a couple years off) 

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  • We just bought our house this past July. It's definitely a starter home for us. The yard is decent sized(.7 acres) and the space works for the time being(it's only about 1,500 square feet and 3 bedrooms-although one is really only about 1/2 bedroom size... long and skinny and it's questionable if it will comfortably fit a bed bigger than Nicolai's crib). It also has short ceilings upstairs and my 6'5 husbands hair brushes the ceilings when he walks around. When we were looking at the house I was sure the ceilings would have been a deal breaker for DH, but i guess not. :-)

     

    I can definitely understand frustrations with renovations. We haven't had a usable shower in here since we moved in. Every morning, we have to head out and drive to my in laws to take showers. Thankfully, they live within five minutes of us. But the whole over 6 months of having to shower somewhere else is really getting old. 

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