Our first house was purchased by my not yet husband a few months before we had the good fortune of meeting. It was a wonderful starter home. Small ranch, updated bathroom and serviceable home appliances. I’m nostalgic just thinking about that house. Why is it so special? It gave us the space to answer the following questions about needs, wants and purpose. Reviewing the questions below will help you at any point in your housing journey. Buy or rent; answer the questions and you will likely have your answer. Stay or move to a larger home; answer the questions.
How much house do you need?
A loaded and highly personal question. But it made us really think about what we wanted space for. In our first house with two adults and a dog we didn’t need much. The main floor of our ranch had two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room and eat in kitchen. The basement was finished and had a ¾ bath and space for a guest. Living smaller was our thing before HGTV and the tiny house movement glorified it. At one point I did a 30-day tally similar to the closet purging technique of tracking what you wear by flipping the hangar around when you wear something our of your closet. I tracked what space we used. Turns out we could have gotten rid of one of the bedrooms and 90% of the basement. Alas I still had to do laundry in the basement or the whole thing could have made my list. This assessment was telling. We spent most of our time together in our main living space. No space for a man cave or woman cottage required in home 2.0, but keep that second bathroom – emergencies happen.
What do you really want?
Darn Jones they really can mess with your head when it comes to answering this question. In the year between when our friends started to purchase their home 2.0 and when we followed suit this topic was a continuous discussion at our house. Over the year we realized that what we wanted most was proximity to places and activities we liked. Neither one of us wanted to be packed away in a subdivision with more than a mile walk to amenities or needing to get on a highway to access areas of town we loved. This mythical new home no longer was a discussion of size or number of bedrooms.
What is your house for?
Sounds simple, living in, that’s the answer right? Really it isn’t. When you are thinking of your new house are you envisioning hosting dinner parties with your adoring friends? Are you looking to impress all visitors from the entry way? Do you want to feel like you are a host on food network every night? Would nothing make you happier than a giant family game night? Look whatever sounds the best to you should guide your house hunt. This is the feature or potential future in a new home you need to be looking for. For us, we wanted an amazing kitchen. What we got initially was an electric range and Formica counters that weren’t so great but a few years and a renovation later, we did get that kitchen.
Are you insulated financially?
What is at risk in your life? What might change in the next 3-5 years? These are the questions that guided us to the list price or maximum cost for our home search. Professionally we were at a risky point, the business we were a part of was headed in the right direction but honestly wasn’t paying all that well and we wanted to buy in a neighborhood that might necessitate private school for any future children we might have. Because of this we decided that we needed to be able to afford our next house and associated costs (utilities taxes, etc) on one income. So we did the math for what we knew we could pay on a mortgage on one salary, took that number to an online calculator and then use that number to define the top of our budget. This isn’t that fun, what is more fun is getting a big giant number from your lender and thinking of all the great properties you could afford with that number. However, we all have seen how risky that option can be.