We bought our home with the intention of living in it for 3 - 5 years and eventually renting it out when we were ready to purchase a larger home. This made a lot of sense to us because home rentals are fairly easy to maintain, are great long term investments, and because we're near the downtown area and a major state university renting it out to good tenants would be very easy.
Fast forward to October and our cute little 2 bed, 1 bath home is feeling awfully cramped with swings, bouncers, jumpers, play mats and various Boppy pillows filling up the open spaces. Long story short is that we're now in the market to buy a new home within the next 6 - 8 months but this time we'd like to buy our forever home.
The problem we're encountering is size versus location. We love our location; lots of great restaurants within walking distance, beautiful neighborhoods with developed communities with lots of history surrounding them. However, if we move a little further out our money will get us a lot more bang for our buck. Either way we'll be in a bigger home but it might not big enough if our family expands again in the future or we might be a greater distance from the amenities and features that we enjoy now.
What would you rather have, lots of space to spread out or a fab location? I'm leaning towards location...
Just my two cents! =) I'm actually the perfect example of what you're not leaning towards, haha! I lived in the Bay Area, then had to move to the Tucson area for work in 2004. I opted to buy a brand new home outside city limits (because work is on the outskirts of the city anyway) with a bigger backyard and floorplan than homes "in town." At the time, I was buying more for resale, since it was during the housing boom. But now, I'm very happy that, while we're out kind of in the boonies with nothing in terms of restaurants or things to do, we're in a fantastic school district (the best in AZ), in a quiet and beautiful neighborhood where we can spread out. And to be honest, even now, we're thinking about the possibility of moving into an even bigger house if/when baby #2 comes along!
ReplyDeleteBTW, your house is SOOOO cute!