What we did is bought the house we wanted at the time, this was 7 years ago. 3 bedroom/1 bath 1100 sq ft raised ranch+5 acres. Figured enough to grow with our needs for now and then see where we are in a few years. 7 years later no kids..different jobs, just more crap Find a house that suits both your needs now, some extra room, not a huge mortgage, that you can still do other stuff, don't worry about too much other t hen that. I figure it this way- you can always move and with jobs the way they are many times you have to move to a new area.
We bought a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house when we were in a similar place. It's got a bonus room too, which will be great as a playroom or office if/when we have to give up a room for a baby. Our place is only 1700 sqf, but the layout is great. With just the two of us, the house does not feel too big at all (we have a guest room and an office/craft room) and I don't think I'll ever go back to one bathroom! We hope to have a kid our two soon now and I'm glad that our house will continue to work for us for a the next stage of life. Moving isn't just a pain in the ass, it cost money in terms of real estate fees and such (we calculated this when debating two bed vs three).
Our house is 3 bedrooms plus a dedicated office (which is technically considered a bedroom because it has a closet) and 2 baths. It's 1950 sq. ft. We don't have kids yet, but we plan to eventually. We were only 24 when we built the house, and we're now 28. Kids are still a couple years away, but we knew we didn't want to have to move when we had them.
The space doesn't feel wasted now. I work at my company's office part time and at home part time, so the office is used a lot. We have 2 extra bedrooms. A guest room, and a sort of random room that is now being used as a music room. But in the summer, we host 2 baseball players who come here to play in a summer league. So there's 4 adults living here 3 months out of the year. The size of the house still works very well. I think we could have 3 kids here, but would want to move once they got middle school aged because I think it would start feeling too small at that point. Only one of the extra bedroom is really big enough to share, and I can't imagine 2 older kids sharing it.
Anyway, point is that I think our house size is good for both situations. There are families on our street and also older couples, and their houses are all right about the same size.
We are on the fence about kids. If we do, it won't be for another few years.
We own a home in one state (where we originally lived) but it's now rented and we just bought another home in the state we currently live. Although it would have been nice to buy a big house, it just wasn't in our budget with two mortgages. I always joke if you put our two mortgages together, we have a really nice house!
So we bought a 2/1 with tons of storage, fully remodeled so we wouldn't have to put a penny into it and in a great neighborhood/school district. It also has a walk-up attic and a huge, clean and dry open staircase basement. We could refinish both if we were ever "stuck" and needing more room.
It's all a matter of weighing the options and what's available. A give and take. Personally, I love our small and really cute house. I'd hate to have to clean, heat/cool, furnish and maintain a huge house if it's just the two of us.
I would aim for nothing bigger than a 3/2 if I wasn't sure I wanted children. We have a 4/3.5, and there is no way I would want this much space if I wanted fewer than 3 children. Although it looks like there is a huge range for how big 4 bedroom homes are. Mine is 3200 sq ft with an unfinished basement, and cleaning it is no joke. Having a craft room, work out room, etc. would not be worth having to clean, cool, and heat twice as much space as I needed. I think 2000 sq ft would be more than enough for us if we didn't want children.
I don't think I would want 4500 sq ft under any circumstances.
We bought a TH knowing we both have demanding jobs and didn't want to spend our weekends mowing the lawn and taking care of home repairs. I was firmly in the one and done if any camp, MH wanted 1 or 2. Our house is large enough to comfortably accommodate 1 child, but not overwhelmingly large for the two of us and our greyhound.
We have 3 BR/2.5 BA w/ a 2 car garage and approx 1600 Sq. Ft.
Post by sillygoosegirl on Jan 8, 2013 20:29:41 GMT -5
I can't imagine buying while on the fence about kids. We would have picked a far different house if we were not planning to have them (probably something smaller and more expensive).
How do you feel about being land lords if your needs change for the house? Low interest rates potentially make it a good time to purchase investment properties, so if it ends up being that instead of your forever house, that wouldn't necessarily be so bad, if you would be okay with being land lords and could come up with a second down payment if/when it was needed...
We're on the fence about kids too. We currently own a 3 bedroom, 1600 square foot house. We have a spare room and an office, and the assumption is that if we had a baby here, we'd turn the office into a nursery. I don't know what we'd do with the stuff in the office, but we mostly use it for storage anyway since neither of us work from home.
Our hope is for our forever home to have 4 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms and a basement. Preferably 4 bedrooms and a basement, but I don't want to end up spending way too much money on space we don't need. I think 3 bedrooms would be fine if we had a basement (finished) because we could put an office area down there. I don't know what we'd do if we ended up with 2 kids because I do want a guest room, but for the 2-4 weekends a year we have guests, it's not worth a ton of extra money every month on the mortgage, either. Thats what futons and hotels are for.
By the time we're ready to actually buy another house, though, we hopefully will have a more solid idea on kids (we'll be closing in on 35 by then, in all likelihood). If I were you, I'd buy something with enough space for kids if you want them. You can always use more storage/craft room/extra office/whatever if you end up not having them.
In your shoes, I'd go for a 3-br, 1500'ish sq ft house, with a basement. Enough to not be too much, but also enough to have a kid or two. If you decide to have one or two kids, you could finish the basement to include office space and a guest bedroom. If not, you use the bedrooms that are there.
Post by donnamartingraduat on Jan 8, 2013 22:57:51 GMT -5
We just bought this summer and are still on the fence about kids. The possibility of kids didn't really impact what we were looking for size / BR-wise. We knew we wanted a three bedroom for resale reasons (2 BR have a hard time selling here) and we didn't think we would be able to afford a 4 BR in our target area. We ended up with 1800 sf, 3 bed / 2 bath. We will stay if we have kids (we would never have more than 2).
What it did impact somewhat was location. Within our desired location, one of the school districts was much better than the other. So, we made sure to buy in the good district. If we don't have kids -- again, it will help with resale.
firmly on the fence. we bought for our current needs. one of our current needs included buying minimum 3 bedrooms for resale.
we could have 1, possibly 2 kids here, if we decide to have them. we'd probably stay with 1 and move with 2. the layout is much more suited to our current, childless lifestyle, however. our master bathroom is as big as our master bedroom, the other 2 bedrooms are small, and half the house is a giant, open living/dining/kitchen.
Ditto Chia with buying a smaller house with a basement. A lot of the 1200-1800 sq foot houses have unfinished or partially finished basements. You can get another bedroom and/or office out of them. We har this situation but probably will only have one child. The space isn't ideal, but for this area I don't mind.
If you are on the fence, I would definitely buy something that is bigger rather than smaller. I wouldn't buy a single family house that only had 2 bedrooms - that seems bad for resale.
When we bought our house, I was 100% decided on one kid only. The thought of a second never even crossed my mind. Our house is quite large (3900+) but it is really set up like a two bedroom. The third and fourth bedrooms are located in the middle of the house off the foyer (without even a real door) and the far end of the house in the in-law suite (too far for a young child). If I had known that I wanted 2-3 kids, I probably would have bought a house with a more traditional set up. Our kids will be sharing a room until they are old enough to move to a different part of the house, if they choose. If we have 3, I have no idea where we would put the third.
A big house isn't necessarily filled with wasted space. You just have to find a place with a good layout. Our house has a ton of space, but it is used very well, with huge closets and bathrooms (which I prefer) and very few wasted hallway or transition spaces.
We were in that boat too. We bought a 4 bdrm 2000sqft house.
Since the size isn't crazy, that helps. But we have separate living and family rooms thinking that would be good if we have kids. It is really not for entertaining, which we do frequently. Oh well.
We just bought our first house this year. We are 32/31 and on the fence about kids. We initially looked at houses in the 1200-1500 square foot range, which would be perfect for us. We didn't want too much house. It just so happened that a bigger house (1800 sq feet) came on the market when we were looking in a neighborhood we loved that was in our price range. It's great because although it's big for us now, I'm sure we'll grow into it whether we have kids or not.
FWIW it was a bit of a relief to buy a house without the pressure of possibly having to sell/buy again in 3-5 years.
In your shoes, I'd go for a 3-br, 1500'ish sq ft house, with a basement. Enough to not be too much, but also enough to have a kid or two. If you decide to have one or two kids, you could finish the basement to include office space and a guest bedroom. If not, you use the bedrooms that are there.
Wise. We bought before we had a kid, knowing we wanted to 2 kids. We looked at 4bd houses and were kind of terrified at how big they were. We bought a 3bed (near EFC, btw) and are finishing the basement this year. The basement will be my office/guest room (we only have guests at holidays/weekends, so not really when I need to be working).
Another thought is that, while it's a pain to go through, adding a single-story addition isn't too bad (we did this too). Keep an eye out on properties that have layouts where you could maybe add a small room (to serve as an office?)
We are pretty sure we won't be having kids. We bought a 3 bedroom plus loft house, 2200 sqft plus 1000 in the unfinished basement. Dh works from home and his business and hobby requires a lot of stuff and needs a lot of space, much of which is in the basement. One extra bedroom is an office, the other is a guest room, and the loft is mostly unused. We're talking about finishing the basement if things align right financially this year. It's definitely more space than 2 people "need" but the only room that is unused is the loft. I think 4000+ sqft would be way too much for 2 people, but 3200 is about right for us.