Which house would you buy?

[Aishe]

Is this in SoCal or am I confusing you with someone else? I would go with the bigger lot. I like lots of outdoor living space when you have nearly perfect weather.

[westwoodmom04]

You need a not enough information option for the poll. What are the top three pro and cons for each?

[specialp]

Yard. I think 2500 would be very comfortable for 3 people and we need outdoor space to play.

[DualvansMommy]

I'd go for the smaller house/bigger lot. Especially if you live in an area with warmer months most of the year. Not that I think 2500 sq feet is small, as it is very good size! Just that you do lot more if you had a bigger useable lot.

For comparable point of view, we're a family of 4 with a 60 lb Boxer on one acre lot with 2700 sq feet home. It is just the right size for us as a family with a big deck and a new outdoor patio we just put in with a build in fire pit. Our 1 acre property is plenty enough for us to do that, and still have space for a storage shed, play set and plenty of grass for kids to run around. We could put in a pool in, if we wanted to as def have space for that.

It comes down to how well the house is designed, not so much about square footage. Ours gave us 4 dedicated bedrooms upstairs, a living room, dining room, den, kitchen with a eat in area and a dedicated office. All of this is on the first floor with a combo mud/laundry room and a very sizable foyer. That foyer space became my sanity during long winter months as DS1 could use his big toys like racing car, dumpster toys, etc to lay out and play when we couldn't be outside.


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[Snow mom]

To me 2500 sq ft is a big a$$ house and I would never choose to own and maintain a house bigger than that. I enjoy maintaining outdoor things so I'd go with the bigger lot no question.

[georgiegirl]

If you live in so cal, then I'd pick bigger lot as you can actually enjoy the outside living space.

[mackmama]

This is all very helpful. DH wants nothing less than a 4000sqft house which I keep wondering why we need to have something so big. (We had a 4700sqft house before DC, just for the two of us! I thought it was insanely big, and I had to clean it all by myself. DH thought it was the right size.) I am very frustrated, as all the homes I'm seeing in our desired location have tiny tiny yards (no room for a playset much less a pool). It's helpful to hear most people agreeing here that a smaller house, bigger yard is preferable. We are currently on a 1/2 acre. I could do with 1/4 acre, but DH likes space which we just won't find where we're looking. I'm sure I'll be posting another thread when we have it narrowed down to specific houses. Right now it's more theoretical.

[JBaxter]

This is all very helpful. DH wants nothing less than a 4000sqft house which I keep wondering why we need to have something so big. (We had a 4700sqft house before DC, just for the two of us! I thought it was insanely big, and I had to clean it all by myself. DH thought it was the right size.) I am very frustrated, as all the homes I'm seeing in our desired location have tiny tiny yards (no room for a playset much less a pool). It's helpful to hear most people agreeing here that a smaller house, bigger yard is preferable. We are currently on a 1/2 acre. I could do with 1/4 acre, but DH likes space which we just won't find where we're looking. I'm sure I'll be posting another thread when we have it narrowed down to specific houses. Right now it's more theoretical.

I still have 2 boys at home 3000 is a minimum for us. My last 2 houses were 3500 3700

[daniele_ut]

We are a family of 5 and we just sold a 2650sf house on 1/4 acre that I honestly thought was perfectly sized for us. We had 4 bedrooms and 1still unfinished in the basement. For a family of 3, it would have been an abundance of space.

We needed to be closer to the private school where DH works and my kids attend and we were looking for a similarly sized house and lot. We had a house fall into our laps that is much bigger, 3900sf on an acre lot. It's a ton of space for us and there is even a 500sf apartments it's a separate entrance in the basement that I rarely even go into!

In your case I'd choose the smaller house on the larger lot. 1/4 acre really isn't even that big. I can't imagine what a 3600sf house looks like on a lot much smaller than that.


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[ett]

We're tearing down our 1300 sq. ft. house and building a 2500 sq. ft. house on a quarter acre lot, so I vote for small house, big yard. We have 4 people and 2500 sq. ft. is the right size for us. We can't afford, nor do we need anything bigger.