How do you know a forever house?

[ktzmoh]

I love our house. I have grand plans for all the rooms- and I'd love to invest in it the way you would invest in a forever house. But who really knows how long we'll be here? We might have to move for work down the road, depending on the direction our careers take. Im afraid of sinking a ton of cash into making our house perfect for us if we are just going to have to move 5 years from now. How do you strike that balance?

[thewop]

For me and my H? We're underwater on our house, so I'll live there forever before I lose a penny on it (bought years before the crash). Haha. It helps that we really like the house and the neighborhood is awesome. Even if the market did come back in our area, we'd probably still stay in our current house. I just like it. And we'll continue to remodel and update when we have the cash/time because it makes me happy NOW. Who knows what will happen in 5 years.

You can't go around living life by "what if's" because then you'd never do anything KWIM? What if your car died tomorrow, what if you lost an arm, an eye, your house burned to the ground? A million things can happen between now and "forever", so you should live your life to fullest and do things that make you happy. However if you or your H are in a specialized field where it's hard to get a job and don't see yourself working in that area forever, then it's might not the right thing to do for you. What does your gut tell you? Are you hoping or expecting your careers to take a turn in the next 5 years?

[kyliek29]

I'm going back and forth with the same thoughts. DH bought our current house as a fixer upper (we had just started dating at the time, so I had no say in the house). We moved in about 4 years after he bought it (he wasn't even living in it). We have since put in a lot of work to fix it up - the biggest being a kitchen remodel, which I love. It's a small kitchen, but I still love it!

I've thought about adding onto the house, to create a master suite & laundry room. (It's currently a 1.5 ba house, with the laundry in the garage) We could do a lot ourselves, but it would still be a huge expense. DH is afraid we won't get our money back, but if we stay there for a while, it would be worth it. I love the location of the house. The school system is good. It's an older, but established neighborhood - so hopefully it would stay up (which is another worry from DH).

I was reading an article (don't know how true this is, but I'll go by it!)... if you don't plan on selling in the next 3-5 years, don't spend too much time trying to figure out if you're going to get your money back. If you can afford it, do it so you can enjoy it! But that's just my thought.

[simpsongal]

We're in a major metro area and I pretty much need to stay here for my specialty. So I doubt we'd move. Plus, we're near DH's family and we would never move to the area near my family (too rural). We're planning on staying in our house 30+ years to forever - that's why we focused on the un-changeables like schools, location, yard size, neighborhood, etc.

Agre w/thewop - "what ifs" can drive you crazy. If you'll probably be there 10+ years, make it your own and don't worry about resale.

[downtoearth]

Don't worry about your "forever house" and make improvments that make you happy while you're there. You only have to worry about improvements if you do intend to move soon and then you can figure that out if/when it comes.

We used to live in an 800 sq ft bungalow (with 350+sq foot basement) and still sort of thought of it as a forever house although it was too small for our 4 person, 1 dog family. We always just dreamed of saving $$ to pop the top and dig the basement deeper. Any house you love can be your forever house.

[magdala9]

We knew it was our forever house for several reasons:
We love the neighborhood.
We love the house. There are some things that we will be tweaking but these are minor issues.
We can afford our mortgage without stretching our budget.
We can envision having children grow up and go to school in this neighborhood at these schools
Our jobs are relatively stable and there are opportunities in our fields if our current employers should ever go under.

[FoxInFiji]

We know we're in our forever home because:
- We love the location and bought the property mostly because of the land. The house is sound and good sized but a fixer upper.
- The house can fit a small family like we want without being too crammed.
- We both have career long jobs that we don't ever plan to leave in the foreseeable future. Both of our companies are mainly comprised of career long employees as well.
- Both of our families are nearby. DH's is only 5 minutes away.
- We both grew up in this small town which is a very desirable area to live (hence why we could only afford a fixer upper if we wanted to live in the country).
- The school district is awesome.
- We had an extensive house buying search that lasted a long time so we know there is very little that met our criteria.
- A few years after owning the house we decided this would be our forever home and started saving up for massive projects that you would only do in a forever home like install a geothermal system. We take the mindset that we're going to do each renovation/room once so we want to do it right and love the results. That means living with what we have for a long time, saving up extra money to get exactly what we want, and carefully planning everything out (how does this reno affect that reno, how can we reduce maintenance, accessibility when we are elderly, what changes could we possibly make in the future and how can we limit what that needs to disturb later, etc.). We are on a 10 year plan to eventually renovate the entire house.
- Our area can justify putting in the high level of finishes we are so even if we were to have to sell for some reason we wouldn't be overpriced for our area.

[lightbulbsun]

When we bought the house we thought it would be our forever home, but since then we've kind of changed our minds. Neither of us want to stay in the area forever, and I honestly think the house is too big for our 2 person 2 dog family.

We'll probably be in it at least 5 more years, though, so we're doing updates that we like and not really thinking too much about re-sale (although everything we're doing is an improvement to what was there before!).

[Deleted]

I'm with WOP. You can't play the forever game or you'll be miserable in the meantime. Do what makes you happy and what will make your house great within the realm of your finances of course.

I'm in my forever house, or at least on my forever plot of land.
My job is all over the place, but it also doesn't pay enough for me to get wrapped up in it. H however, has a ton invested in a stable family farm and loves what he does. We'll be here until we're dead as a result...lol. It's also a 3rd generation farm and we're the next generation to carry it on. So it's pretty cool and nice to have the stability. So I guess we just know because we don't have a choice!?!

[lurkergirl123]

I mostly knew because of the neighborhood. I love the neighborhood.

I love the house too, and I knew when I bought that it would need windows in a few years. It will cost us at least $10-$12k to put windows in, and I didn't even bat an eye. That's how sure I was this was my forever house.

(I'm cheap. That's probably important to say)

[treedimensional]

It's not a matter of "knowing", it's a matter of deciding.