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After relocating to a different city within the same state about 10 years ago, my wife and I are moving again. This home will be our fourth “Forever” home. It seems apparent that our residential “nesting“ decisions are flexible.
At the age of 72, why would we even consider moving? Even worse, why would we consider moving to a larger and more expensive home with higher maintenance costs, higher Utilities, and higher taxes?
I’m sure that I didn’t fall recently, and I’m reasonably certain that I’m not having a mental breakdown. So, why would anyone in their right mind make such an odd financial decision? My wife and I have spent the majority of our waking hours during the last month pondering the same question.
We moved to our current home approximately 10 years ago. When we bought our home, it was a newly constructed Patio Home having approximately 1750 square feet of living area. It was perfect for our needs! My wife did several upgrades such as turning kitchen cabinets into pull-out drawers, reconfiguring the pantry, and creating a small office where none existed. She also added increased storage in our utility room. It was perfect! Approximately three years ago we enclosed an outdoor patio, brought the slab up to grade, and created an additional living area.
All of these additions and upgrades were completed under the assumption that this was our “Forever” home. The home is one story home with wheelchair accessibility and a walk-in shower. We felt comfortable that we could successfully age in place in this house.
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Why Move?
As much as this house accommodates my wife and me, it no longer fits the needs of our family. When we moved into this house, only one of our three children was married, and we had no grandchildren. We now have three married children and four grandchildren. As the years progressed, our little house became less and less suitable for family gatherings as our family continued to grow. It was becoming too small and too noisy to host family gatherings with multiple small children.
Over the last year our middle son, who lives locally, has assumed hosting holiday events. This was not an ideal situation, as it highlighted the growing deficiencies in our ability to host our growing family. We recently were happily surprised with the news that they are having another child.
This news was preceded by the recent news that our daughter, her husband, and their two daughters are moving to our hometown. Our daughter was the catalyst in our decision to purchase another home. She intermittently reminded us how nice it would be for us to live close to them in the planned community where they are building a home.
So, off we went to look at homes. There was one area in this planned community that interested us, and it happened that there was a home for sale in that area. The home is three years older than our current home, is one story, is about seven hundred square feet bigger, and has a much larger living area. The house is perfect for our new needs and sits across a one-way avenue from a park with a playground. It’s exactly what we envisioned would satisfy our needs in a new location. The house is larger, big enough to host larger family and social gatherings, and has an associated park and playground for our grandchildren.
The problem was that we were unsure about whether we wanted to pay the much larger price for this house with its associated higher maintenance, insurance, utilities, taxes, and increased HOA fees. We were spoiled by our existing patio home with the minimal costs, taxes, maintenance, utility fees, and location.
The biggest consideration, beyond the increased home and ongoing costs, is whether we wanted to spend a lot of money (partial portfolio depletion) to move to a different and more upscale location.
Would we stay up nights worrying about a smaller and more vulnerable portfolio that would be assaulted with increased withdrawals for the rest of our lives?
Would being closer to our daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters pay large enough dividends?
Would our two sons spend more time with us if we moved to a larger home next to a park?
Would we make new friends, and how would we start over with new neighbors?
In addition to all of these questions, the previous owner of the house was ill, and there is now a great deal of deferred maintenance required.
The house will require a new roof, stucco repairs, complete interior and exterior painting, landscaping, and electrical and plumbing repairs.
After living in a new home for ten years with minimal maintenance and low annual costs, my wife and I were very uncertain we wanted to tackle a project of this magnitude.
Putting money matters aside for a moment, my wife and I focused on how we wanted our lives to proceed from this point. A home that was perfect for us ten years ago is no longer perfect. The house is still perfect, just no longer perfect for our needs.
Our needs have changed, and our changing needs require that we change houses. But, do we want to expend the time, effort, and money that will be needed to bring this house back from disrepair?
The biggest question: “How much gas do we have in our tanks?” How will we handle the physical and emotional requirements of totally renovating a home, and then suffering the pain of moving………again?
Another consideration: If we buy the home adjacent to the park, our soon vacant current home would be the perfect home for our daughter’s family until their home construction is complete. Instead of having to make multiple moves and store all their furniture, they could move into our current home with their furniture and belongings. It would mean huge savings of time and money for them.
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Pros and Cons
Pros-
- Larger home.
- Park and playground across the lane.
- Better layout with increased living area.
- Closer to both of our children and grandchildren who live locally
- Our daughter and family could occupy our home while theirs is being constructed, with substantial savings.
- More upscale neighborhood.
- Walking access to gym, pool, tennis courts, clubhouse, restaurants, and grocery stores.
- Home has great potential for aging in place.
- Giving my wife and me a project to look forward to.
Cons-
- The home is more than twice as expensive as our current home.
- There is a large amount of deferred maintenance that must be addressed.
- A bigger home means higher utility costs, higher taxes, higher HOA fees, and higher insurance costs.
- Must endure the short-term pain of a comprehensive remodeling project.
- Do we have the needed stamina and energy for this project (gas in the tank)?
- Unknowns such as ease of making new friends, hidden expenses, buyer’s regret, and potential disappointment with the finished remodeling.
- Unhappiness with our new surroundings.
- Potential longing for our old neighborhood and neighbors.
Once we thoughtfully and extensively considered all the pros and cons, we (as the title implied) decided to purchase the home and move to a new area. At the time of this blog (June 2024) we are about one week away from the Act of Sale.
In my next blog post, I will outline the financial decisions involved in making our purchase and the purchase’s effect on our portfolio. I’ll also discuss payment strategies, letters of credit, potential mortgages, and other financial considerations.
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Final Thoughts
Life is crazy!
One month ago we were happily oblivious to the fact that one month later we would be purchasing an expensive fixer-upper. Much time and thought has gone into this decision. Because of the costs and time involved in renovating and moving, the decision was hard and was not made easily. One of the ways I thought about this purchase was that regardless of which of the two houses we lived in, they would require maintenance due to the age of each home. The home we are purchasing was not well maintained. Our thought process is that we are “front loading” future maintenance in the home we are purchasing and will hopefully avoid some of the normal maintenance issues by addressing them now.
We are not as young as we once were, and we both realize that this is going to be an extended uphill slog! We have money, but do we have enough money? Do we have enough patience?
I have famously said in the past that couples should test their ability to stay married by taking dance lessons, and by building a house. We have breached both of these obstacles in the past and passed the test both times. I think this house will test us again!
Find out in my next blog how we handled the financial considerations of our home purchase.
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