My immediate family aren't "movers" so I do believe in forever homes. My current (and probably last) house was built by my grandparents in the 60s. I don't see us moving for any reason.
Post by bugandbibs on Mar 25, 2019 20:02:44 GMT -5
We've been in our forever home for almost 10 ten years. All of our close family lives within walking distance and the neighborhood is a good mix of quiet and close to stuff. Our jobs are secure and we are easily employable in our area.
It's a little tight at times right now with 3 kids, but it will very easy to maintain as we get older. It's a single story on a flat lot. We would rather have the flexibility of having the mortgage paid off earlier and free up funds to travel or whatever in our 50s. We do plan to do some upgrades in the next 5-10 years, but they are mostly cosmetic. Sometimes I get a little wishful that we had a more impressive home like our peers, but I can usually push that aside because most of our friends carry a large amount of debt and we don't.
share.memebox.com/x/uKhKaZmemebox referal code for 20% off! DD1 "J" born 3/2003 DD2 "G" born 4/2011 DS is here! "H" born 2/2014 m/c#3 1-13-13 @ 9 weeks m/c#2 11-11-12 @ 5w2d I am an extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing, pro marriage equality, birth control lovin', Catholic mama.
I think we’ll eventually have a forever home. We talk about it a lot, but first we need to get to our forever location. With MH’s job moving us every 3-5 years, it’s looking like our forever home is far away. But the good thing about moving so often is that we get ideas of what we like/dislike at each house to add to our forever home list.
Luckily, all our moves are corporate relocations and touch-free. While moving sucks, it sucks a lot less when someone else is packing and unpacking.
We are absolutely in our forever home. We are almost 7 months in to a large scope renovation where nearly every single wall has been/will be touched. Not only do I love my house and how well it suits our family, but we adore our block and our neighbors and our community.
Post by mariafromnj on Mar 25, 2019 20:32:00 GMT -5
We built our second home and thought it would be our forever home but that changed. We bought our next home and thought for sure we would stay here forever. The town is amazing and it is everything I ever wanted but once again it looks like we will be moving. Our financial situation changed, we are not close enough to family and mh wants to move. It will happen in about a year and I cry about it often. I wish things were different but I know this next move will really change our lives in a good way but I will be away from friends and it will change my career which is upseting. I have no idea if the next house is the forever house.
Post by steamboat185 on Mar 25, 2019 20:46:02 GMT -5
We’ve been in our current house for about 7 years, which is crazy to me. I have no intentions of it being a forever house, but it certainly could be. I love the location and it’s got a great lot and good setup, but if an amazing job offer asked us to move someplace better we’d move in a heartbeat.
We're living in a small house, on a TINY plot of land, in an area we never really saw ourselves living. We bought back in 2006, also thinking it would be our small little starter. Still here...
About 18 months ago we put an offer in on our DREAM home. Still in the metro NYC area, but more removed. Lots of amenities around. The house backed up to a horse farm, a river, was on a dead-end cul-de-sac, but was still only about 10 minutes from a huge mall. The owners stopped paying their mortgage and things got sticky. About 5 months in, we backed out. Then we took a break from house hunting because walking away from that house really stung.
So now here we are. Still in our tiny, 1980's home that we don't love. It's ok. It's taught us a lot over the last year or two. To be content with where we're at in the moment. That it's not the house that makes the family, or the dream, or the life. My MIL broke her neck on Christmas and has dementia. I don't know how we would have managed her care had we moved a few more towns away.
We have no debt and no mortgage. And at this time, have zero idea when we will move. Or at this point, where we would want to go. Probably not the town we were about to move to last year. DS is now enrolled in a tiny private school (kinder, and it goes through 8th) that can manage his medical needs. It feels like a perfect fit, but now we are even MORE "stuck" where we're living.
I think at this point, a house is just a house. I'm jealous of people with fancy kitchens, bedrooms upstairs. And quite honestly, I really thought we would be there by now.
This will never be how I conceptualize a home. I might be willing to say this is my long term home? Circumstances change and approaching a big decision like home ownership with the weight of FOREVER in my head would stress me out even more.
Post by killercupcake on Mar 25, 2019 21:50:36 GMT -5
This house obviously isn’t it since we’re selling.
I don’t think the next one will be either since we’re still considering a move to the east coast.
I like to think that we would eventually end up staying in one place long enough to have a forever home, but I have no idea. I’ll go with “home that is right for us now.”
My mom has been in her house for 34 years. She’ll never move. I’m not sure what’s in the cards for us. I grew up in the same home, the one my mom is still in. DH moved every few years. I can see him not wanting to settle in one place forever.
When I moved into our current home 7 years ago I never would have thought we’d still be in it (and would have bought it from my mom). We ended up really liking the neighborhood. Our plan is to decide in 4-5 years whether we want to add on or move.
I like the idea of it, but I get antsy. Also, I can't currently afford the type of house I would eventually like, at least in my area, so I'm almost certainly not buying my forever home as my next house.
H is currently going through an existential crisis at the idea of selling our city condo, though, so maybe this will end up being our forever home, lol.
We bought our forever home in 2008. Sold it in 2011. I still miss that house, neighborhood, city, and pretty much everything...but life took us out of state.
We’re happy with the house we’re in now. We have no plans to leave this house, but I’ll never say never. A great job offer close to my family would have us packing. (Or rather, have movers packing us! I am pretty confident saying I’ll never move on my own again.)
I love our house, but it's not our forever home. We never even intended to be here this long (15 years), but the real estate market shit the bed a few years after we bought, and we kind of had to stay put or lose a bunch of money. This will definitely not be our retirement home - there are no bedrooms or full bathrooms on the first floor, which will be untenable if one or both of us has trouble with hips / knees / whatever down the road. Even recovering from a major surgery would be tricky in this house. We want something with at least the master suite on the first floor. We have no plans to move any time in the near future, but it's in the back of our minds.
Our plan is to decide in 4-5 years whether we want to add on or move.
Add a few years to this and that is the situation we are in. We have a structural engineer coming soon to see if we can remove a fireplace and to see if the garage foundation is strong enough to support an addition above.
We are building our forever home. With work and military we have moved 8 times in our marriage and are finally ready to put down roots.
We are young but are building a one story with handicap accessible doorways and low threshold showers so it’s easy to transition when we are considerably older. I am planning the finishes to be as classic and timeless as possible as we don’t want to be updating any time in the near future, if ever.
We are pouring our souls into this home and I would be honestly devastated if it were not truly our forever home.
Yeah I don't think I believe in the "forever home" thing. Too many variables to be able to assume a house we buy will be the one we buy for the last time ever.
That being said, I loathe the packing and unpacking process and currently love our house, so I'm good staying here a while. I don't expect we'll always live here, and right now that does make me a bit sad only because we got our house for a steal and it has so much individuality and charm that I'm skeptical we'll ever find again in our budget in our area, but that's not a bridge I need to cross just yet.
Were building our forever home right now and moving in June, or at least the home that will take us through to retirement. At that point I could see us downsizing and spending more time travelling (health permitting).
DH’s family is big on forever homes. His cousin lives in his grandparent’s house and the ILs have been in their place for 35 years and wanted to sell to us when they were ready in 5 years or so. We don’t want it so building our own house is our way of dodging the massive, unupdated in 35 years, prone to flooding disaster with too much land and too far away from our jobs.
We did decide to build a two storey home which to me means we will likely move out at some point. Our new neighbourhood is mostly bungalows so there will be local options at some point.
Barring a disaster with my husbands job we'll be here for a long time. We've sunk a lot of money into renovating this house and it's the size we need for our family. As far as moving goes if nothing bad happens the only question will be if we stay until the girls are in college or longer than that. We'll eventually downsize.
Post by irishbride2 on Mar 26, 2019 6:32:18 GMT -5
I'm not opposed to moving but I do think our current house is our forever house unless we inherit my mom's house someday.
If we do buy another house, we certainly want to make sure we are doing it within a budget that doesn't restart us on another 30-year mortgage. I would hate to be retired and still paying a mortgage.
Post by mrsukyankee on Mar 26, 2019 6:43:24 GMT -5
I'm hoping our next move will be a long-term one. I've moved so many times in my almost 15 years in London and I'd like to settle in one place for a good long while. But I wouldn't imagine that it'll be a forever home. Whatever home we buy will be fitted out so that my MIL can live there until the end of her life, be it a chair lift or elevator or the ability to put in a ground floor bedroom/bathroom. If it works out, then we might be there until our old age or beyond. But who knows. Brexit may change everything for us.
Post by lovelyshoes on Mar 26, 2019 7:12:52 GMT -5
First, Congratulations! Being closer to downtown with a better commute is key to happiness imo. I don’t mind moving, but I Hate packing, unpacking and the move itself. I think the longer you stay somewhere the harder it is to move.
We just sold our townhouse that was supposed to be our temporary home. We outgrew it in no time, I disliked the location and because of the shitty market we were stuck there 4 times longer than we planned to. My one regret was buying that home. We made no profit on it and now we are in a much tougher market to buy. We want a home for the next 10-15 years, but by no means a forever home. My dream is to move to Europe or back to Manhattan. I need to be in or very near a big city, the burbs are not for me.
Eta, for people who would never move. Do you like redoing parts of the home, like new kitchen, new bathrooms?
I don't like change, like at all, and although I fantasize about a different house, I really do like mine, despite its drawbacks (smallish, lack of storage, one bathroom). I'm in a great location, the price is right, we have a garage (somewhat rare for our borough), and it has some historic charm, including beautiful red pine floors, a nice layout, and lots of light. Flat, smallish lot that's easy to maintain, etc. We're undecided on whether we might take off the kitchen/bedroom on the back of the house and build a much larger addition (kitchen/mudroom/half bath/office/master suite) or if that's too much work and $$$ and maybe we'll just move, but it would almost certainly be a less desirable (to us) location. And we've already been here almost 5 years, which is crazy. I can't imagine leaving already.
Of course, with a bigger house, eventually, we wouldn't need the space. Kids move out, my parents (mom might want to move in with me) will pass someday... so I'm 100% on board for downsizing/changing later in life, especially if we wanted a one-story. I'm also open to moving out of state (I've lived in 3 states in my life, my husband has lived in 5 states - including college and grad school) - and 2 foreign countries), although we like the community and COL where we are.
So I dunno. I feel like "forever home" is like "lifetime warranty." What does that mean? 20-30 years? I'm very big on planning where you want to be and what you'll need in 5-10 years so ideally, you're not moving every 3-4 years (circumstances, like job transfers or surprise triplets, depending of course). At least if you own. Moving gets expensive. If you rent, moving is also a PITA, but at least you're not playing around with market timing and equity.
Eta, for people who would never move. Do you like redoing parts of the home, like new kitchen, new bathrooms?
No, but to me it’s just a fact of life. Our area is so expensive that to buy a move in ready space would mean a small condo or townhome and we really wanted a larger SFH. It’s not like I could just move to get a new kitchen or bathroom. When we bought our house almost everything was 30 years old. We’ve been slowly renovating, but haven’t done the big stuff like kitchen or bathrooms yet. It will really suck when the time comes, but we will figure it out. Unfortunately neither my H or I are handy so it’s also really expensive, but buying older and renovating allows us to pay cash as we can afford it versus tucking it into a mortgage and paying over 30 years plus interest.
Even when a newly renovated home in our neighborhood goes on sale by the time you figure closing costs and moving it just makes sense to stay put. Although it had been really tempting!
This is our forever home, until its not anymore. We bought land from family and built this house, so my husband's parents live on one side and his grandparents live on the other. We will be here long term, but at some point, his grandparents will not be there (they are in their 90s and still running the farm) and we can be more open to moving if we wanted. But, so long as they are alive, it won't happen, and likely not so long as his parents are here either.
I do have future development plans for the house - adding a huge 3 season room, for example, in a few years. Year one of the build our large investment was in geothermal. Year two we built a barn. This year will be landscaping. Its all a process but an enjoyable one.
I hate moving and vowed that when we bought our first home in 2013 that it would be our forever home. I love parts of our house but hate other parts of it. It needs a lot of work to get it to be where I can see it being a forever home. I also am now more open to moving into a different home or town, but feel like regardless, in order to sell our house for more than we paid we would need to put in some serious work. So at that point, we might as well stay.
I am not in my "forever" house. It will work for as long as we need it to. Its big enough and does the job. But I hope to move within the next 5 years.
I am in my "until my parents pass away" home. They live 2 block away and have picked out a retirement home a couple miles away so they can stay in the area with their friends, doctors, etc. In any case, they want to live in their home as long as they can and with a ranch, that could be another 10-15 years. My mom says she wants to die in that house. Soooo, here I am.
My home is way too big for one person and two dogs and I bitch every weekend when I am cleaning. But it is so close to them and paid for. I would end up paying what I paid for this place for something smaller and farther away if I moved. So here I am for the however long. It is close to the airport, shopping, work commute is decent (30ish minutes). It is weird being surrounded by families when I am a singleton though.
ETA: I moves a lot when I was younger so it is nice to have been in a place for almost 10 years. And my parents sure believe in forever homes. They have been in their house for 46 years.