Found a house to buy but...

[pinkytoe]

It is 2500 sf. It has everything we are looking for but is way bigger than we want or need. Fantastic lot with lots of beautiful well-trimmed oak trees and garden spaces. Not on the market yet so we have a little time to think about it. Bigger means more of every expense but most importantly property taxes. We were shooting for around 1600 sf but there just aren't a lot of them out there. Still deciding whether to go for it or keep looking for smaller.

[Yppej]

Is it likely your family will grow in the future and you could use the space then?

[happystuff]

It is 2500 sf. It has everything we are looking for but is way bigger than we want or need. Fantastic lot with lots of beautiful well-trimmed oak trees and garden spaces. Not on the market yet so we have a little time to think about it. Bigger means more of every expense but most importantly property taxes. We were shooting for around 1600 sf but there just aren't a lot of them out there. Still deciding whether to go for it or keep looking for smaller.

Personally, if you plan for this to be your "last" house purchase, I would say wait until you find what you actually want. If you plan to buy and then move again in a couple years, it sounds like it would have a nice resale value, so go for it.

[JaneV2.0]

Is there a chance a relative might need to move in with you at any time? Are the property taxes high in that area? That would be big for me, too--but it's rare to find the perfect house. If everything else matches your specs I would certainly consider it, if property taxes are reasonable. As always, go with your instincts.

[iris lilies]

Since the lot sounds lovely and probably the location is good, I might get out pencil and paper and really compute how much that extra 1000 square-foot of house will cost you in taxes, heat and cooling. Just ‘cause you have a space doesn’t mean you have to keep it heated and cooled to the same level, but of course there is always the maintenance of that space meaning exterior painting, interior painting, roofing, that extra square footage etc. If you can objectively put a cost on it you might find it palatable.

make sure the trees are in good condition and you won’t have big tree maintenance bills coming down the pike.

[Teacher Terry]

Is this back in Texas?

[Tybee]

I'd be tempted, especially as that extra space gives a nice area to finish off as guest space, and you want your daughter to have space to visit with husband and your granddaughters. That's four extra people that might want to stay over sometimes.

[SteveinMN]

Depending on how the added space comes (extra rooms or just each room a little bigger), it may not be that much more expensive to maintain -- except for the property taxes, if that's how they do that where you live (here it's by assessed valuation, which has no direct correlation to square footage).

For me, it would come down to how good everything else was. If the size is all you dislike about it, and you know how rarely houses your desired size come around (never mind 1600-sq ft houses with everything you want and on nice lots), well, it's not ridiculously bigger. I'd go for it.

[pinkytoe]

Yes, it is back in Texas in a small town in the Hill Country. I would hope it is our last house. It needs cosmetic updates but the "bones" are good. It doesn't have a bunch of rooms but the ones it has are very large. And it has a large formal dining room which is useless to us as that. Here is a photo of the backyard:
3271

[happystuff]

Very pretty backyard, but it looks like a shared backyard. Is it?

[Tybee]

Beautiful land and beautiful houses around you, too. How likely is it you will find something this nice at 1600 square feet that will not need remodeling?

[Teacher Terry]

Without rooms you can close off that would be way too big for me. The biggest house I lived in was 2000 sq ft with 5 people. I can’t imagine being in a home that big for 2. Cleaning it would be a pain. Our 1400 sq ft is perfect.

[pinkytoe]

Yea, TT, I keep thinking about all the furniture a big house takes. The property tax though will be the clincher. We are now used to about $1200 here in Colorado and it will be around $5K there. We paid $10K in Austin.

[Teacher Terry]

When we moved we sold half of our furniture. Those property taxes are expensive. We have gotten spoiled because ours are only 700/year. It’s a odd formula where they take the age of the home into consideration.

[catherine]

Texas is funny--hard to find a house smaller than 2500 sq.ft.! I saw an HGTV episode set in TX once and the older couple was "downsizing" to 4000 sq.ft.

The back yard in the picture is beautiful. I guess the question is how desperate are you to buy right now, how much do you feel in your heart that this is "the" house, and can you live with the negatives in order to get the positives?

I'm a strong believer in my gut. I also feel it would be good to see it in person to see if your heart beats faster when you walk up to it. But that's just my woo-woo hippie take on it.

[iris lilies]

Yea, TT, I keep thinking about all the furniture a big house takes. The property tax though will be the clincher. We are now used to about $1200 here in Colorado and it will be around $5K there. We paid $10K in Austin.
You don’t need more furniture to fill it up. You really don’t.

For the living room, make a seating group out of your current furniture. Done. So what if there’s a vast space left around it? Really, so what? Easier to clean the floors that way.


If the answer is that your gut says it’s too vast and empty, I would then say you don’t want such big rooms and this is not the house for you.

[Tybee]

That's a good idea, IL, a good way to think it through.

[JaneV2.0]

2500 sq. feet really isn't too much--I grew up in houses that big. You can always close off extra rooms and not worry about heating or cleaning them much. The only factor for me would be property taxes and cost of gardeners, etc.

[pinkytoe]

Many houses here in CO have large sq footage because their basements are the same size as the main floor - like having two houses really. Many from the 50s and 60s at 3000 or more.

[Teacher Terry]

If half is in the basement you just close it off. But 2500 on one floor with big rooms is huge.

[iris lilies]

Our Hermann house is either 1200 or 1400 square-foot, I can’t remember which in the real estate listing. It’s a 1941 bungalow so it has Small bedrooms and smaller bathrooms. But I’m OK with that, I mean I’m thinking about it a lot and sometimes with my own bedroom I get claustrophobic when I think about it. This probably has more to do with ceiling height than with room size. My victorian house has 10’ 6” ceilings.

Anyway – our Hhermann living room is a nice size with a fireplace and BIG wide windows ( not skinny victorian windows) at either end and in the middle, so I have one spacious room. Then we’re going to add on a sunroom which will be spacious-ish and will seem that way because it will have lots of windows.

So I think of this space as cozy if I want that, but spacious if i want THAT.

Our basement runs the full length of the house and I have told DH that is his space, he gets the entire thing. But he may not bring furniture into the first floor. We haven’t really talked about the second floor where there are two bedrooms and will be a bathroom, all small 1940s- 50s size rooms.

[Tybee]

Is the basement finished? Or is it more shop space and storage space?

[iris lilies]

Is the basement finished? Or is it more shop space and storage space?
Our Hermann basement is not finished, it is will be shop, storage, and (apparently) a summer canning kitchen. I am watching this latter development with amusement.

[Tybee]

We bought a house with a summer canning kitchen once. The guy made maple syrup from the trees on the property. Everything in the kitchen was covered with a fine mist of dried maple syrup, like shellac.

[iris lilies]

We bought a house with a summer canning kitchen once. The guy made maple syrup from the trees on the property. Everything in the kitchen was covered with a fine mist of dried maple syrup, like shellac.
Ugh. You’d have to sandblast those surfaces to get them clean.

It seems we need a summer canning kitchen for the extensive food preservation we do in order to feed our 8 children. Oh, wait...No, that’s not it. We don’t have any children.

We need extensive food preservation (and already have two large freezer units down in that basement) because we once starved and are now very very skinny and in need of constant calories. Oh, wait...that’s not it either. Neither of us ever starved nor are we low on body weight.

We need to preserve crap tons of garden produce BECAUSE WE ARE INSANE. Yes,
I think that’s it! As a secondary reason, we need to preserve the foods, making decades old freezer burned stores, to drive Iris up the wall.

hahaha.

[Teacher Terry]

Luckily my husband canned food once and I didn’t help at all. He has never done it again and as it’s 6 years old I am slowly throwing it away jar and all. I sold our chest freezer when we moved. Unfortunately our garage came with a ancient refrigerator that refuses to die.

[pinkytoe]

I have eight tomato plants coming along nicely so I may have more than I bargained for. Canning is not in my future. Sun-drieds maybe as the sun here is intense.

[catherine]

I have eight tomato plants coming along nicely so I may have more than I bargained for. Canning is not in my future. Sun-drieds maybe as the sun here is intense.

I have never canned, but I have gone through the process of blanching to remove skin, de-seeding, and dicing tomatoes and then putting them in freezer bags in batches.

[Gardnr]

It is 2500 sf. It has everything we are looking for but is way bigger than we want or need. Fantastic lot with lots of beautiful well-trimmed oak trees and garden spaces. Not on the market yet so we have a little time to think about it. Bigger means more of every expense but most importantly property taxes. We were shooting for around 1600 sf but there just aren't a lot of them out there. Still deciding whether to go for it or keep looking for smaller.

I would not "settle" for something bigger with higher monthly and annual expenses for the coming decades. You're better off with a short term rental while you watch for a rightsize home. If I recall, this is your intended final home?

[Tybee]

Is it resalable, if you get there and find it's not for you? I know you'd be happier back home near your grandchildren and daughter, so there's that to think of. This might be a good next house, and more resalable at that size, if that is customary there.

[alice]

I have a similar problem. It feels silly to buy a huge house just for two of us. But then you never know how big the family will be and you want to be sure everyone will get enough space. Though if we only have 1 child, there is no need for all that space. Never thought it would be such a difficult decision.

[iris lilies]

I have never canned, but I have gone through the process of blanching to remove skin, de-seeding, and dicing tomatoes and then putting them in freezer bags in batches.
I am collecting tomatoes to freeze. I’m not even going to blanch them or remove skin. I just wash them, cut them up and put them in a freezer bag. Tomatoes are the one thing that I preserve because I want to make sure we have them when needed Throughout the year.

[JaneV2.0]

If you fall in love with it, you can make it work. (Note: it doesn't work that way with humans.)

[pinkytoe]

As it turned out, that particular house sold immediately. And such has been the case with every house since.