Homebuying Advice: Do you Wish you had Bought More or Less house?

[sste]

Or anything else you wish you had done differently--other than market timing which none of us have perfect control over or a crystal ball about!

We are going to start looking in another month or so. We sold our old place a few years ago and then have been renting in order to try out a new area. In our new area, we can either buy a nice house in a family neighborhood and have very little mortgage and possibly "move up" if we want in five years. Or, assuming what we want comes on the market, we can buy a bigger sort of house walking distance to a beach, fewer families, we wouldn't ever move unless we left the state, but we would have a substantial mortgage - - it wouldn't be stretching but it would lessen our extra disposable income and we would need to be more cognizant of spending.

Anyway, wondering if people have any homebuying advice or in retrospect wish they had bought more or less house?

[hillview]

We LOVE our house and wouldn't want to move. That said I wish we had a finished basement. When we moved here the kids were newborn and 2. The space we have is HUGE for kids that age. Now DS2 would be a lot happier if he could kick a soccer ball for hours in the basement. I hope to get the basement finished next year. So I wish we had a little more house but not a TON more.

[mackmama]

I wish that we had bought less house. DH likes a lot of square footage, although I think he's now realizing that's a lot of house to clean and keep up. Mainly I really wish that we had considered location more. Our location is really the only reason we have not been able to sell our house (on busy street). The main things I'd look for in buying a home today would be location, updated and nice home, "enough" square footage, great school district, in a family-friendly community with kids/neighbors nearby. In this economy, I'd want to make sure I was buying in an area with a high resale value and would not want to overextend at all in terms of a mortgage. I'd also buy with an eye toward asking myself "Would I be happy living here for 10+ years just in case we can't sell for whatever reason down the road?"

[arivecchi]

Well, you kinda know our saga. In retrospect, I am glad we ended up with less house (although we have the biggest lot now). Less taxes, less utility bills, less furniture and much lower mortgage payment. We passed on a much more updated house for more charm and a better layout. It's been a much more pleasant experience all around. I would buy somewhere where you would feel comfortable staying 10-20 years. That was our goal this time around.

[boolady]

I wouldn't want less, but I really wouldn't want much more, either. Our house is old, so doesn't have a family room separate and distinct from our large living room, so that or a finished basement would be nice. A partially-finished basement is still a possibility, actually, down the road, but given the layout of the basement, all of the space down there isn't fully usable. We are also getting estimates to make our glassed-in front porch usable all year round, which will give us another first floor living space. I am actually quite happy with the space we have-- not too much, not too little.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I love our house size for us- 1800 sq ft of living space and a basement (not finished but useable space; real floors and walls). 2000 sq ft might be even nicer because ds2's room is pretty tiny. But, it's all about layout though! Our last house had some giant bedrooms but small living spaces; I'd have rather the other way around. So, think about how you spend your time. Think about how those needs might change over time if you want to stay put.

My biggest regret is not having easy access to the back yard. The house is on a hill so it's a walkout basement.

Like pp, we plan to refinish the basement and that will be awesome!

[Mommy_Mea]

I am pretty happy with how much house we have - around 1500 sq upstairs and a small finished area in the basement. Budget-wise it wasn't a huge stretch, but we live in a HCOLA, so it certainly isn't cheap. But we bought for schools and neighborhood location. The house is boring but fairly updated and very usable (for us).

When we were house hunting, we looked with the mindset that we would be in this house forever. It might not be our dream house, but we wanted to be okay if we ended up stuck in the house for any reason. We saw way too many friends and family buy their "starter home" during the bubble, only to be stuck years later, trying to make do with something they wanted to move out of 5 years ago.

I wish we had a master bath, one more bedroom, larger kitchen and better flow to the backyard. But I can live with what we have, and any other house in our area would have some sort of large compromise for the price. We love our neighborhood, our location and our two car garage :)

[KLD313]

I wish we would have bought less house because it's a lot to maintain and clean. Heating it is really expensive, too.

[Kindra178]

We LOVE our house and wouldn't want to move. That said I wish we had a finished basement. When we moved here the kids were newborn and 2. The space we have is HUGE for kids that age. Now DS2 would be a lot happier if he could kick a soccer ball for hours in the basement. I hope to get the basement finished next year. So I wish we had a little more house but not a TON more.

This exactly. Except I had two newborns and a two year old. I need about three more rooms: (1) a dedicated sports room (like a place where DS1 could kick a soccer ball or shoot baskets); (2) an office; and (3) a guest room. Our basement will require a dig though. We will probably do it in a few years.

[AnnieW625]

Well we bought with the 5 year plan and it is 7 yrs. later and we are still here. We bought in 2005, about 18 months before the market peaked in our area.

Our house is 1100 sq. feet, has 3 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom. Yes I wish we had more space. We have no playroom, no basement, no separate living room, and our laundry area is right off the kitchen.

Our ideal house size is 3 to 4 bedrooms or at least 3 bedrooms with a den, alcove or separate family room that could also serve as a small guest room and computer area, plus a 2nd bathroom. We would be more than comfortable with 1800 sq. feet to 2400 sq. feet. When we were looking for houses those houses were topping out at about $625K to $650K, but it wasn't unusual to find the houses with 2000 sq.ft+ to be going for upwards of 700K. We paid $513K for our house and our house equity rose a good 15% to 20% in price before the market started falling in early 2007.

Looking back if we knew the market was going to crash as much as it did here we would not have bought, but we bought because housing prices were going up every weekend by at least 2,500-5K per weekend before the market peaked. If we had waited even a month we would have been easily over our high budget of 525K (for a house the same size, same amenities, and in the same general area as ours). As an example the people we bought our house from paid $249K for it in 2002, we closed escrow 3 yrs. and 1 week later after they bought it we bought it for $513K. They took out a small home improvement loan to redo the kitchen, but DH and I estimate they made at least 200K on the sale of their house. We could have gotten a non end unit condo. that was 1400 sq. feet, 2 beds., 2 baths, but had a nice formal living area that could have doubled as an office and a guest living area with a sofa bed for $459K, but the kitchen was really small and there was just an outdoor patio area, plus DH was adamment that if we bought a condo we would only buy an end unit and I understood that was a good amenity to have as well (there aren't high rise apartment building condos. in our neck of the woods so we didn't have that option of internal corridors). Sometimes I regret not buying that place just because it had a second bathroom and more living area, but in the end I think we'd still be under water more there than we are here.

[queenmama]

I would choose the family area over the beach. There's no guarantee that it'll be the ideal family neighborhood but at least you'll have a shot at it, and less mortgage is definitely smarter.

Moneywise, we bought just the right amount of house. 1300ish square feet on the main floor and 700ish finished walkout basement. But we have 2bd/1ba on main and 1/1 downstairs which doesn't work well for our family. We've lived here for over 14 years and it was never an issue with just us and DS, but DD has thrown us a curve so we're looking even more seriously at moving in the next year or two (makes better sense for the commute, too).

Lara

[nfowife]

I would choose less house, smaller lot with closer neighbors (I'm on an acre), pool access (my own or neighborhood), not as rural in location. We are moving at the end of the school year and I can't wait!

[niccig]

We should have held out for a house with 1 more bedroom. My study space is the dinning room table, we don't eat at the table much.

I agree with buying if you can see yourself there for the next 20 yrs. We bought 8 yrs ago with the 5 yr plan.

[mommylamb]

Well, the only thing I wish is that we had known the market would crash. In 2006, we sold the condo we bought in 2003 and bought our townhouse. How I wish we would have rented for a couple years in between. But, we made a ton of money off the sale of the condo, and that allowed us to put 20% down on the townhouse. Townhouse price has gone down, though it's back up a fair amount thankfully.

However other than wishing I had ESP on the housing market, I think if I were in the same position I would make the same decision. I really wish we lived a little closer to the city and that we had a house with a yard for the kids, but those things would have been outside our budget, or required other concessions from us that we weren't willing to make and that I still wouldn't want to make.

[lovin2shop]

We have lived in a smaller and slightly less than ideal house for 12 years. But, it is a great neighborhood full of families and friends and we've really enjoyed it. Now, we are finally making the jump to our dream house, and we will move in this spring. I'm glad we stayed in the small / not very luxious house for the time that we did because it is paid off, and we've had time to save for the bigger house. Had we moved 4 or 5 years ago (we were looking, but I was pregnant), it would have been to a nicer house, but definitely not as nice as we are buying now. So overall, I'm very glad that we waited.

I'm still a bit nervous about the new neighborhood (it's all still under construction), and the expenses that come with a big house. I've enjoyed not feeling house poor for a long time now, so it is definitely going to be a mindset change for us and our spending habits. But, overall, we feel comfortable with our financial plan, and are very excited for the new home.

All of that is a long way to say, I'm not sure how to answer your question!

[lhafer]

I like the size of our house (3000sqft, 4 bed, 3.5 bath 1 story with study and gameroom). But I wish we had a larger yard (we built on the last lot available, so didn't really have a choice). 1 stories take up a LOT of yard!

And I wish we had done hard wood floors. "Free" upgrades when we built had included extended tile floors (foyer, kitchen, breakfast area and living room), which I liked better than carpet - but now that I have lived here for 3 years, I really really really want hard wood floors. We live in Texas, where you don't have basements (usually) and the subfloor is concrete. So ripping up ceramic tile off of a concrete subfloor is WAYYY to costly and time consuming. A friend had wood floors put in, and she had ceramic tile in her small foyer and a little bit down a hallway. It cost just as much to rip out her tile and put in wood as it did to tear out the rest of the carpet in her dining room/family room/master bedroom and put in the wood floors!

85% of my house is tile - no way can I afford to rip it out and put in wood floors and stay within the "budget" of our neighborhood. We would totally price ourselves out of our neighborhood.

[codex57]

Location first. So, in your case, I'd prolly buy the bigger house since you can afford it.

[Moneypenny]

Our philosophy has been to buy much less house than we can afford, in a great family neighborhood, and it has served us well. We did buy a house on a lot that has room for us to add on to the house if we want to down the road, but honestly 1800 sq ft has proven to be more than enough space for the three of us.

[mom3boys]

Well, we are under contract for "more" house, and have been living in "less" for awhile. We bought our current house 8 years ago as a 5-year house. We had no kids at the time. It is 3 bed 1.5 bath, about 1700 sq. feet. Biggest issue is only 1 full bath and no play place for the kids--indoor or out as there is no yard.

3 kids later, we went for a large house (over 3,000 sq feet), even though it is tougher on us financially. However, we did look at smaller houses too. We were already looking in only areas with good schools so our chief criteria were 1) nice lot (DH didn't want a smaller lot or one that looked out on a bunch of other yards) 2) easy commute 3)house is big enough or can be fairly easily expanded 4)house is livable in current condition 5)area that could be used as play room 5)DH really wanted a pool, so we did try to find houses with one or with a yard where one could be built. The lot and location were the key for us, we were willing to buy a property that needed work.

Our new house is 1.5 acres, yet DH can walk to the commuter train, and we can walk 0.5 mile to several restaurants and stores. This was huge for us. The property borders a creek and we don't really see the neighbors on the other side due to the trees, so it is private. The whole area is very family-friendly because the school system attracts families. It has a pool. The house itself needs a lot of work but it is large and has a huge playroom that is not a basement (good for us since we are in a flood zone due to the creek). And, even though it is a stretch for us financially we could tell it was a "good deal" that normally would have been above our price point.

Like PP said, we were looking for our family home that we would live in until our DS graduate high-school (in 17 years :)). We were seriously considering a smaller home that would have been easier on us financially, but the location was not as good, the lot was not as good, and DH was saying--"maybe we could move in 10 years to a bigger place" when he said that we realized it was not the right house and went with the dream house. I hope we really like it because we can't afford to go anywhere once we move in!

[anonomom]

I'd go with a smaller house in the family neighborhood, but that probably just shows my bias towards that kind of neighborhood. I like a sense of community and having playmates nearby.

FWIW, when we bought our house, we bought less than we could afford. (a feat made much easier because we were moving from a high COL area to a lower COL area). Our house is just right in size for us, but configured badly for a family of 5 (3 large bedrooms, where 4 smaller ones would be more useful). We have looked at other houses nearby with the "right" combination of rooms, but still can't bring ourselves to discuss moving seriously. I love our neighborhood, too, which is a huge factor. And I don't think I'd sleep well at night with a larger mortgage.

I'd also be really leery of living anywhere near a beach, but I tend to be very risk-averse.

[gatorsmom]

Well, we are building larger, if that tells you anything. Now that our kids are out of the toddler/preschooler stage, we can see that need their own spaces. Our oldest 2 boys are ages 9 and 7yo and have always shared a room. It worked for a long time but lately they are really coming into their own. They would really benefit from having their own spaces. Cha Cha likes to be alone and often stays in his room building, drawing and creating stuff. In the process he leaves an ENORMOUS mess which he hates to clean. Gator who is my oldest, usually ends up picking up his brother's mess because he likes things more neat. He is nonconfrontational so rarely says anything when Cha Cha raids his lego toys and steals parts though I know it reallly bothers him. They are just so different and think if I want them to continue to get along, they need to be separated. So, all our children are getting their own bedrooms in this new house. DH needs his own space too- we don't get along sharing office space. He is completely unorganized and I like things to be put back where they belong (call me crazy!). The arguments about respecting each other's space and things are sooooo old. We just do better when we have our own space. So, that is figured into the new house too.

So, the house is bigger than our last one. But I think we'll all get along better if we have more space.

[larig]

more house. We have 3 small bedrooms 1 bath, no garage, no basement (about 980 sqft) at our Seattle house. DH works from home so that third bedroom is his office. It's hard for DS to have much room for toys and playing. I have no space for any sort of crafty stuff which I enjoy doing. Having visitors from out-of-town is next to impossible.

[rin]

I wish we had a slightly bigger house. When we first bought our house I was pregnant w/DD1, and we'd been living for a few years as a childless couple in a 1400 sq ft house + basement that was really much bigger than we needed. We sort of went to the opposite extreme and bought an 860 sq ft house. We added on another bedroom/bathroom/mudroom last summer, but it's still only 1100ish, which is smaller than I'd like for 4 people, plus DH works from home so we have to have a dedicated office. Most of the time it's fine, but I would love it if we had somewhere to put guests up. As it is, we can throw a mattress down on the floor of the study, except DH needs to be in there every day to work, or we can have someone sleep on the non-pullout couch in the living room, neither of which are great options for anyone past college age.

However, I love that our mortgage is super low and that I don't really have to ever worry that we won't be able to make the payments. I don't see us looking for a bigger house anytime in the next 5 years, although if we end up moving for work-related reasons we would probably scale up slightly.

ETA: We also don't have a garage/basement/attic/any of that, so storage is kind of an issue.

[sste]

Thanks for the interesting responses everyone!

In our case, any house whether more or less is going to need to have four bedrooms plus office space for me in some form though basement would be OK for that. Fortunately, I can find that in both areas I would be looking. As you head closer to the water in my area, you get to very large houses but probably the biggest factor in making them alot more money is the proximity to the water.

[amldaley]

Less. We ended up house poor. You can always add on later. Next time, we will absolutely follow the adage to buy the smallest or least expensive house in the nicest neighborhood b/c you can't control the location or the neighbors.

ETA: and frankly, I think big giant houses are overrated. Smaller houses mean the family is more in touch and there is less to maintain.

[stinkyfeet]

I'm not sure if my answer will help, but I wish we had "more house". We just moved this past spring from a moderate-sized townhome to a large-sized townhome. The only reason we moved was to put our kids in a better school district, so even though it was for the most part, a lateral move home-wise, it still costs us a great deal more to live in our current home.

With a third baby on the way, we wished that we could have bought a bigger single family home. It wouldn't have really been realistic for us though since I have been staying at home since DS1 was born (and COL in our area is pretty high). There are at times that I really regretted staying at home due to this problem.

For the most part, our home fits our needs now since our kids are little. DH feels it might get a little cramped as the kids get bigger. He thinks we will move once I get settled into working again.

[gatorsmom]

ETA: and frankly, I think big giant houses are overrated. Smaller houses mean the family is more in touch

I don't think more space equals less in touch. I think it has more to do with how well the family communicates and relates to each other. My mother grew up in a one room shack and said she wasn't really close to her sisters until she moved out. Then she got along with them better. I think there is something to the idea that distance makes the heart grow fonder. And having your own space that isn't constantly invaded by other peoples' stuff doesn't hurt either.

[sste]

Stinkyfeet, we are in a similar position except the four of us are in 900 sq. feet in this rental! Amldaley, I would agree that our smaller place has been cozy and easy in many ways including financially. But, we are running into some limitations with a growing family! We are going to be TTC a third baby soon. And all of our family are out of state and it is going to make a big difference I think in their involvement with our kids if they have a free place to stay with their own room - - so that brings us to at least four bedrooms. Then my job has offered to let me work from home, condense my schedule, they more or less asked me to come forward with a plan that would make me happy (exceptional employer!) - - and I realized the best move for me is to set up a quiet, separate home office and work on my research for four or five hours each morning and then spend the rest of the day with the kids. So, I need an office space that is very separate and quiet - - attic/third floor great, basement OK, studio above garage perfect.

Anyway, it seems like it is hard to find that perfect medium of a house that will comfortably fit a family of five or more and semi-WAHM - - everything seems a little too small (for example three bedrooms) or in my area when you get closer to the beach you are looking at ginormous - - I would need to invest in rollerblades for indoors and would probably weep at each month's heating bill!

[gatorsmom]

.

Anyway, it seems like it is hard to find that perfect medium of a house that will comfortably fit a family of five or more and semi-WAHM - - everything seems a little too small (for example three bedrooms) or in my area when you get closer to the beach you are looking at ginormous - - I would need to invest in rollerblades for indoors and would probably weep at each month's heating bill!

I think one way to make a big house more cozy is to limit the number of gathering spaces. I know families who complain that when they are watching tv in the family room, their kids are watching tv in the play room or the "home theater room" and they are never all in the same room. Limiting the number of gathering rooms down to just the family room or great room and only putting tvs in a few rooms could stop that.

[DualvansMommy]

I'd say go for more space, if you can swing it because you just never know what life brings you. Having the little extra space helps you to change your family dynamics easily.

We knew we wanted to buy more, and planned it so by living together in DH's 2 bedroom/2 bath condo after the wedding. We did that for 4 years, living on his salary & using my salary completely for savings and fun stuff. It had very little mortgage left, after doing all the fun stuff, traveling etc and sold our condo at peak of the market with only 50K left of the mortgage.

We ended up buying a 2 story 4 bedroom 2 half bath home, with 5th "bedroom" on first floor. It needed a lot of work, but in our ideal neighborhood with one of best school districts though. Our down payment was around 40% of the house's value, thanks to the sale of condo. We used our excess savings saved from my salary to upgrade our master bath, put in hardwood floors in every room first floor (2nd floor) already had wood floors except for the kitchen and foster which is tile, updated the den and living rooms. Den had the ugly 80's wood panelling, popcorn ceilings and very pink living room. We updated it by adding in build in book shelfs, lower cabinets for storage, new laundry machines, new AC, upgraded our electrical work and converted our water heater to tankless heater.

Now that we have DS, this home is really working out for us but still some changes are needed here. DH works from home 2-3x a week, so we used the "5th" bedroom off laundry room as his office but now we want to change that I combined mud/laundry room. Our laundry room is tiny with no mud room. So, were thinking of moving our powder room into the exciting tiny laundry room, and knock down that powder room to open up our kitchen to make room for a large eat in table. As it is, we'll be starting renovating the kitchen after holidays, so hoping we can do powder/mud room combo then same time as well.

That would leave just the unfinished basement to finish in 5-6 years time when DS is a school age kid, and convert the attic to more of permanent office/dressing area. That will work better for us, as its right behind our master bedroom wall.

All n all, very glad we bought this home, just that it needed specific work to make it work for us. The bonus is the mortgage is only 400 dollars more than what we've paid with our previous condo, and now that'll go down as we're refi right now, saving us 350 a month.

[hellokitty]

There is a chance that dh could change jobs so sometime I'm the next couple yrs. Currently, our house with finished basement and sunroom is probably close to 3000 sq ft. We rarely ever use our study, rarely use our formal doing room, rarely use our guest room and the sunroom is the kids' playroom and finished basement is dh's man cave. I feel that we would do fine with less house. A lower mortgage and less house to clean are very attractive to me right now. My older kids will be headed off to college in roughly 10yrs. I'm watching a lot of baby boomers trying to ditch their mcmansions right now that their kids are adults. I guess I'd like to avoid that additional move if possible. I'd also like to get a ranch style house just in case either of us have mobility issues. Mil bought her most expensive and largest house while my dh (youngest) was in college. She already had some joint issues, but bought a two story home anyway. She spent 12 of the 15 yrs at that house bitching about the stairs and complaining about cleaning it. I remember back then thinking it was ridiculous that she bought such a huge house as an empty nester. The older I get, the more that I think that big houses are overrated. My problem is that my dh wouldn't mind a larger house next time. However, I just think that we would do fine in a smaller home by being more resourceful.

[123LuckyMom]

I bought my house before meeting DH and having children. I always assumed I'd move if and when I got married, but it didn't work out that way. Our home is on the smaller side, but I prefer smaller houses to larger ones. I grew up in a large house where everyone was always in their own space. I prefer to be in a house where we're all sort of forced to be together most of the time. The problem with my house, though, is that even though it has four bedrooms, only two are on the upper floor. DH and I have one, and DS and DD share the other. We have plenty of land to build an addition, though, and only one room in the basement is finished, so we could claim that space, too. The best thing about our house is that it is paid for. We have no mortgage. This gives us A LOT of freedom most people do not have. We looked at houses recently and just decided that if we were going to go into home debt, we'd rather do so by renovating or adding to our own house, which we could do in pieces and when and if we knew we could afford it. We have hopes to build an addition and finish the basement. Our house is all open plan, so I'd love to have a family room that could look like my current living room (toy filled) but would be out of the way and would leave us a grown-up living room. I'd also love to have a dedicated guest room and a master suite in addition to the upstairs bedrooms. We may or may not ever do it, but, as you can guess, I'd advocate taking the house with the smaller mortgage. I would never want to strap myself. I feel very strongly about living BELOW my means, not within it, and definitely not stretching! Even if DH lost his job tomorrow (I'm a SAHM), we wouldn't have to worry about losing the house for a good long while. That gives me a great sense of security.

[crl]

We just bought our third house. First was a duplex, around 1200 sq feet. Just the two of us when we bought and ds came home to that house. it was a nice size for just the two of us and just fine with a toddler, but only two bedrooms so it would have been tough with two kids.

Second house was much bigger. I think around 2000 plus finished basement. Honestly it was too big. Too much to keep clean, etc. We never used the basement at all. Still just the three of us there.

Third we just closed on this week and haven't moved into yet. It is 1800 square feet. I think it will be a nice size both now and over the long haul. Big enough now that there are four of us, but not so big we will feel like we should downsize when the kids are gone. It is a three bedroom and it would have been nice to find a four bedroom, but there's not much inventory where we were looking and the fourth bedroom would have meant much smaller public spaces and/or a much smaller master bedroom to still be in our price range. Truthfully, we rarely have overnight guests and they can stay in a hotel or we can squeeze them in.

I think the two most important things about a house are whether you can comfortably afford it and whether you like the location.

Catherine

[twowhat?]

Our house isn't huge in terms of number of rooms (it's a 4 br, 3 bath) but the room sizes are really big and so the house comes in at 3600 sq ft, on a 0.25 acre lot. That lot size and house size is pretty typical in this neighborhood and it was the house that most closely hit all of our "wants".

But if it were completely up to me and I could design a house, I'd want appx 3000 square feet in a 4 br, 3.5 bath with 3 car garage on a 0.5 acre lot:)

So while I don't wish we had bought less house, if we could've found a nicer floorplan in a smaller footprint, I think we would've gone that way.

[KrisM]

Not really. We could have bought more, but didn't want longer than a 15 year mortgage. Sure, 3000+ sq ft might be nice, but we don't need it. We have about 2100 sq ft, with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. We are in a fabulous neighborhood with a lot of kids to play with and I wouldn't give that up. I wish I had a space for me, but eventually, I will.

We were 35/36 years old when we bought it, so a 30 year mortgage was very unappealing. Keeping it to 15 years means it's done well before college for the kids and us retiring. If we had been 28/29 or so, we might have bought a bigger house, as we would have more years to work with.

And, we bought in 2005 at about the peak here. We lost 40% of the value at one point, but it's gone up. We're only down 25% or so now.

[Mali]

We bought small with an eye towards being able to remodel later. Initially, the house was ~870 sq ft with 2 bedrooms (one as a dedicated office) and 1 bathroom on a 5000 sq ft lot. The neighborhood is nice and we're in good school districts which was important to us as we knew that we wanted to have kids. Two years later when we were in early stages with our architecht to design the remodel, the market crashed which put those plans on hold. Thankfully we were lucky enough to be able to work things out so that we were able to start construction in 2010 and move back in last summer (2011).

Now our house is ~2200 sq ft with 4 bedrooms (one of which is a dedicated office) and 3 bathrooms. We did build up so we're 2 stories now instead of just one, but we could easily revert the office into a real bedroom if either of us became disabled and needed to have a downstairs bedroom.

If you have the patience and the tolerance, I'd buy in a location you like with a lot that is large enough to expand if needed. Even though the remodel process can be a PITA (and we couldn't live in our house while it was going on), we could not have bought a house like ours is now in our area. The big houses are either too big or are Victorians (with the building/layout quirks those come with) on small lots.