Conclusion: We all feel the pain — owners and tenants alike. But those who got in before now are so much more relieved. We bought our 1, square foot house with 3 bedrooms and 1. It was a great deal, especially looking at prices in our neighborhood now. We have an office right now that we do not want to turn into a bedroom since we both work from home a fair amount. So, rather than trying to buy a house to fit our ideals, we are planning how to make it work.
Our downstairs already has 2 French doors to close it off, so we will buy curtains for added privacy. Down the road, we would love to put an addition on to add a two car garage and build above to add a bathroom and walk-in closet for our master bedroom and an additional bedroom. If not, we will make due and spend more money on vacations and experiences :. Awesome timing with the purchase!
Construction costs, although rising, or still much lower than the selling price per square foot. And takes time to have two kids. They say the best spacing is between 18 months to three years to get pregnant after the birth of your first kid. Which means you could probably afford to buy a bigger house if you want to. A lot of commenters on this thread are living in much smaller spaces with much more people.
We currently live in a sq ft. We got rid of our couches so we can have our play area for our 2 year old. Great post! Very thorough work! I wanted to add a few things about sound isolation and lighting that might help…. Sound insulation: Oftentimes, you can have an installation company blow additional insulation into your walls — which greatly reduces noise.
Many people only do this for the exterior walls. But you can have them add insulation to interior walls, too — which can drastically quiet room-to-room noise. Home siting: I agree that having bedroom windows facing east or west can be enjoyable for watching the sunset or waking up to the sun.
That said, this can also make a house less comfortable — more temperature swings — and more expensive to condition heat and cool. This allows more light, as you said. It also means your home will have more consistent lighting throughout the day… a huge boon. And in the summer, north-facing windows can overheat a house quickly.
Yes, I would still opt for a house between — 3, ft. I feel bad when there are unused rooms and unused space. I think the house where my parents live in Honolulu is about ft. Just the thought of having to remodel the whole thing is kind of painful. We have 5, square feet, but the rooms are all huge. And interestingly, while the house felt huge when we moved in, we now consider it a very modest size!
Human nature, I guess. The most unused area is probably the formal dining room. Personally, I would still aim for the smaller house. We all liked it so much we ended up staying more than a year. The only thing that bothered me was the clutter—everyone had to be vigilant about keeping shared spaces clean. What were the sleeping arrangements like? And what was it about a smaller space that made you guys happier? Our kids all wanted to sleep in the same bedroom elementary and younger.
What made it happy:. We spent much more time outside and more time together than we normally do, a definite plus.
It was fun to live somewhere urban—a first for us. Knowing that it was transitional and not eternal made it easier to enjoy. The whole experience has convinced me that mindset matters so much more than any checklist. How quickly time flies.
We bought our home with square feet, and raised two children in it. It had four bedrooms. When one child moved away, and my daughter was living with us. Her husband also moved in too. We added a square foot entertainment room to it.
That made in just over square feet. My niece asked why we were adding a new room when the children were almost all gone. I said because now we can afford it. Since my mortgage was already paid off, I did the addition by paying cash.
Haha It was crowded but I loved it. I like lots of people forgot the grandchild also came. Nothing better than having the grandchild with you. The husband was going to study after she finished but instead was deployed to Jordan in the reserves shortly after my daughter received her RN license.
Now she is an Emergency RN in Bakersfield. Told her to wait for the child before either had a job. And the husband, a late bloomer, is finally coming around :. I told her she has to have a separate house attached to her house when she moves into her mansion. A lot of the additional space sq ft is unfinished basement which we plan to turn into a finished bedroom to increase the property value and an office area where I work from home.
I think the newer smaller house was much less maintenance, but we also increased our lot size considerably and with more visitors and three children it has been really nice to enjoy more outdoor space. I like small, efficient living, but in the market we moved to I leaned toward buying a property with expansion and improvement potential in a desirable location over newer homes that were already maxed out.
That said, I think the smaller house used space a little better and needed less upkeep. Lesser investment, better living space.
As far as square footage, sq ft for the first person and for each additional person is plenty. Our first house was sq ft and was very comfortable for two. We had 4 children when we moved out by which time it was getting a bit tight. Proximity to good schools, parks, and public libraries is VERY important if you have children and adds to the value of a property. To be that guy: the chief difference between arteries and veins is the job that they do.
Arteries carry oxygenated blood away from the heart to the body, and veins carry oxygen-poor blood back from the body to the heart. It will probably feel closer to the right size when we go to 4 people and the kids get older.
Full disclosure, we live in Houston, TX so we are bit spoiled in terms of real estate prices. The same size house you can probably find for K.
All this to say, for Texans, ideal and affordable size for a family of four would probably be at least 4 BR, sq ft. As a family with four kids, we are currently building a 5 BR, 4 bath with sq ft. Having a game room is essential to store all of their toys and for future slumber parties.
Not sure how all of you in the HCOL coastal cities live, but what we give up in terms of weather and scenery, we definitely make up for in affordable housing. I and my family 2 adults a 4 year old and a baby , live in Israel in a sqr feet apartment with 2 bedrooms.
While slightly crowded we will move to a dqr feet apt next year , I grew up in a similar aprtment and have good memories of my childhood. I personally think living in an apartment in a city is much more efficient, as you can get around with one less car, which saves tons of money. I have many friends, including my sister who raise families in apartments in New York City. To be able to grow up in a big city is pretty magical and makes you much more aware and streetsmart as well.
We live in square feet right now 2 adults and a baby haha : We are constantly having to get rid of stuff. This is temporary, it will be sq feet later on. Your view is gorgeous! I like that playpen enclosure you have- I might have to look into something like that once he starts crawling. Did you buy the house and are just waiting for it to be finished or something?
When we lived in Houston to live in the area we wanted to live in the only house we liked at the time was over sq ft, which was an obscene amount of space and took forever to keep clean. Plus the kids have a family room to entertain in. For a teenager, having somewhere to hang out and hold slumber parties while staying up late watching movies was a big selling point. While larger than average it feels right for us, which is all you can ask for really.
A lot of the smaller houses we looked at were very pokey, as they were older houses. Newer builds seem to utilize the space better. Although the obsession with giant master suites is still odd to me. If we had two kids, ft. But I think ft.
As always, great post. My wife and I met and started our family 2 kids in Asia and just got used to small space living. For a period of time when the kids were very young, we all had a really nice life in about sq ft. I will admit that it was a very nice sq ft, but it was tiny. Funny thing was, after we got used to it, it brought us closer together. If we are relaxing, we are all in the living room. I really enjoy small spaces with the family and will keep it up for as long as we can.
And as an added bonus, we are pretty avid real estate investors, so whenever we go to buy a home and the lender says we can afford X, we usually split that number in half and go shopping for another rental or a duplex. In China, women will go to birthing homes. Someone to assist the child around the clock while the mom recuperates in the same facility. Occupational therapists to assist with exercises to help mom get back in shape. Education on preparing to go home and nursing independently.
Not surprisingly, they have that in California too. Logical problem solving starts in elementary school. Fortunately you have the time to do that.
Case in point: Asians are not better in math. We simply had to learn to solve scenario problems since elementary school, whereas in N American public education system we spent the 1st 10 years just plugging numbers into a given equation without any problem solving scenario to solve usually some bonus question omg until maybe the last years of high school or whenever physics gets introduced.
Hence we see a lot of students grades suddenly go down girls esp in the last 2 years of high school in physics, linear algebra, and multivariable calculus. Maybe there is a benefit to growing up slower in North America. Back to naptime I guess. I would agree with your size suggestions. The living area is perfect with a formal living room also for having a couple people over for a nice dinner.
One bedroom is a guest room future kid perhaps unless we upsize , and the 2nd bedroom next to the master is our office.
It would make sense that our set-up would be ideal for a married couple and 1 child. Could stretch it to two kids but I believe it would be a bit cramped without an office space. It appears to me about sq ft. To me a family of 3 would be about — , family of 4 would be — , and up to for a family of 5.
Anything more is basically dead space in the house for most people. We also have a separate large office. We have the master bedroom and our son has his room. The third largest bedroom was converted into a home gym. We had a get together New Years and we had plenty of room for 15 extra people to sleep between sofas, the guest bedroom and blow up mattresses. Finally an article I feel I can say I excel at! Geo arbitrage allows me to use the guest suite in the house full apartment with kitchen, living room, and extra bedroom as my office, and the other 3 bedroom house still feels like home.
What you have done is such a no-brainer, especially if you are happy in the suburbs of Portland. I am willing myself slowly to get out of San Francisco. I miss my opportunity to buy a sweet sweet home in , but I really do want to go back to Hawaii and lead a carefree and stress-free life. Being able to make money online or work remotely is going to be such a huge trend. I hope people figure out how to take a bandage because it really is a game changer and a life happy changer.
I like having a 3 bedroom square feet home. We are in CA where we were able to spend a lot of time outside year round. Great to hear. Our current three bedroom, two bathroom home was wonderful for the two of us as well. And pretty good for one child. Two kids is going to be tight, especially with guests. But I do see my wife and I downsizing to a full-service condominium with a view in a sensual walking location when we are empty-nesters. Something like ft. Well, turns our sq ft is our ideal house size for family of 4 including 1 four-legged fury beast.
I commute by bike to my job downtown 5 miles one-way — we only own 1 car. We will have a separate suite downstairs, which will be rented out. Overall, the house will be 3, sq ft.
Taking out the basement suite, our sq ft will be 2,, which is far more than we have ever lived in. Currently, we are in a two bedroom sq ft apartment, while our home is being built.
Will be interesting to see whether you love that much space after year. The one thing I appreciate is a higher utilization of our house since neither my wife nor I have to go to a day job. It feels wonderful to use the house, and if we had a bigger house and had to go to work for 12 hours a day, I think we would feel like we are wasting too much money. Reason why we rented out our old house in was because of wasted rooms and the house is only ft.
To each their own. I respectfully disagree with your recommended number of bedrooms, at least for a family with several children. We have four children, and they share two bedrooms two children per bedroom , with another bedroom for my wife and me. We also do not have a guest bedroom. To follow your guideline, we would have needed to purchase a house with three additional bedrooms two more bedrooms for the children, plus a guest bedroom.
This would have increased the cost of our house substantially, maybe to 1. I think that we are much better off saving many tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price, rather than having those extra bedrooms. As far as bedrooms for children, our experience has been that the most important thing is that children have a place to keep their toys and other things, and that they have space to play, read, draw, etc.
But those space requirements could be partially met with a family room, a playroom, or a basement, rather than with individual bedrooms. I also am a strong advocate against having a guest room. How does the cost of kids gel with your concern for money? And how big is your house and what is the cost? There are many factors to consider, including how often your guests come over, How you get along with your partner, how well do the kids get along, whether you have to work from home and need a quiet space, whether you enjoy reading or having your own alone time, etc.
I find having guests to be pretty stressful on top of a full time job and parenting responsibilities, and in some ways, miss living smaller.
I would tell your guests in exchange for staying at your house for free to at least fill the fridge raider with food and drinks and keep the house clean! The real question is what rooms are used. It is perfect for two people. The house that you sold in at square feet is pretty much the same as the size and number of rooms as my current home.
I would love to have a big yard so I can entertain and work in the garden. I love beautiful landscapes and across a public park living for would be a nice bonus. As far as house direction, the house has to be facing east.
I agree with the ideal size of having one extra bedroom than the number of people living in the house. Having a dedicated guest bathroom is ideal too. Most older homes here seem to be one bathroom short. Growing up I used to dream about having a house with two stories. Now I totally see the benefits of one story houses! So for a married couple with no kids, if you want an office, if want to add a kid, if you want two kids and an office or guest room.
Going beyond that helps provide lifestyle inflation by buying too much stuff. I think this is a reasonable guideline, and I would go even smaller if in a city apt.
No need for separate living and family. And I would make the master closer to So for a city apt:. But kids really dominate the house. Do you have kids? I really feel our house shrank by about ft. Two, four and two years old. We live in a 3 bed, 2 bath square foot ranch with a small basement. My kids have always had free range of our home, but I hate having kid stuff take over our house.
I think most families and I include mine could pare down. Kids engage in more creative play the less stuff they have. My house is 4 bedrooms, 2.
Since we always planned on having 2 kids, we always wanted a 4th bedroom because we wanted each to have their own room and to encourage our out of town family to visit nearest is 5 hours away, grandparents are 7 and 9 by car, respectively. Personally I would have preferred a little bit bigger lot although its probably one of the bigger in the area because I like having an outdoor space.
Unfortunately, that does not exist; when we were looking we found a lot of good houses with about , of usable square feet but they still had the front room, office, and dining room that we have in our home, they just cut out usable square footage from every room.
While this is completely a first world problem, you could see how the addition of furniture or kids stuff made for a cramped existence, hence the house being on the market. I am a firm believer that choosing the right house is a massive step to building wealth and succeeding with money.
We live in a sq ft twin-home, and we bought the other side of the twin-home last year to rent out. Even on a relatively modest annual salary, you can still save and invest quite a bit of money if your housing payments are low, and that extra money invested are the seeds that grow into a forest of wealth. I agree with you that mastering your housing costs is a huge step towards building wealth.
Yeah, we had a big play area when our kid was a toddler too. We have 4 people in a 1, sq ft 2 bedroom condo now. My mom is staying with us most of this year. It is really tight and we really need more space. Our old house would be ideal for this situation. I plan to move into our duplex soon. My mom can live in her own unit for the most part. I think sq feet per person is about ideal. That sounds tight Joe. Does your son just sleep with you guys and your mother-in-law sleeps in her own bedroom?
I think for the first six months will move in with my parents and aggressively search while on the ground and then maybe make the move. My mom grew up in a family of seven in a square foot home. Our home is larger than we need but mostly due to extra bedrooms. We close the doors and vents so our utilities are reasonable. Cleaning is the biggest pain of it all though. We live in Wisconsin, so they do all have giant ugly basements that can be used for playrooms as well.
We're having a hard time deciding if we should still consider houses that size, or if we should move farther out for a larger house. This would mean a somewhat worse school district, less fun community stuff in the neighborhood, and a longer bike commute for my husband. Anybody have relevant experience? I guess I should add for background info that we're living right now in a sf rental with both kids and haven't found it cramped.
But four kids seems like such a shockingly large number I'm having a hard time figuring out how much room I would need. Your kids will benefit much more from the good school district and the neighborhood events plus Dad having a less stressful commute! It sounds like you really like this neighborhood. If you find a house you like, you will make it work. My friend grew up in a home a one of five children.
The five kids split two bedrooms. It worked. How many bedrooms are there in these sqf houses? What are the genders of the children do you know yet about the twins?
I would think that if you are looking at homes with at least three bedrooms, you'll be grand. I also imagine that with a giant ugly basement, a teenager will eventually lay claim to some part of it, and you will have the flexibility to accommodate that in the next five to six years. Location, location, location - I can't stress that enough. Try to find a property in your preferred area that has yard enough that you could put an addition on if you want later on - it's good to have options.
That basement playroom sounds like a must if the kiddies will be stuck inside a lot in the winter. Really, though, bathrooms should be a bigger concern. With four kids, you and your spouse, I'm thinking a house with 3 full baths - or at the very least 2.
Response by poster: Oh, sorry, that is important information. The older two are both boys and currently sharing. The twins we don't know yet but they're identical, so they'll be able to share for a long time as well.
We're looking at minimum 3 bedrooms. Will this be a somewhat temporary home for the next years , or more of a "forever" home? I think that will color the answers you get somewhat. I agree with the above that school choice and neighborhood are far more important than house size, but I'll also say that four teenagers in a sf house sounds pretty challenging.
I think that if you have that playroom fitted out to be the place they and maybe you play and hang out, you'll be fine. Put the TV down there, the comfy couch, the games and books, the stuff you use when you relax. Put a video monitor down there while they are small. You can do bunk beds in their bedrooms. The neighborhood you have sounds like a gem.
Don't leave that if you don't absolutely have to. I grew up in a family of 6 4 kids close in ages not unlike your own family, two parents and also in a smallish house. I don't know the square footage but I'd say probably under , but not like teeny tiny or anything. The house was built in the mid 70s. The bedroom breakdown was like so: - master bedroom with ensuite bathroom, held by my parents.
For most of my upbringing this was the older two of my three brothers. It was nice to have a separate bathroom from my brothers, but I think if my parents had the choice, they'd have preferred to have that third bathroom in a common area of the house so that guests didn't have to use the Kids Bathroom.
Especially since the kids' bathroom was ultimately the Gross Preteen Boys' Bathroom. We did not have any kind of basement or any kind of common play area, which I think wore on my mom constant legos underfoot but really didn't matter to me as a kid.
We just played in the bedrooms or the living room. We also did not have the Formal Living Room and Casual Den setup that a lot of homes have, just the main living area which had a fairly open plan. I have 2 kids and 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms upstairs I can live here easily with another 4 or 5. Ideally I would love a huge great room but otherwise my house is great! Thu, Jan 07 , am ok, I think I had better not check back in on this thread, it is just going to make me jealous.
My family of 8 manages fine just about in our sq ft house. If I read about everyone's big houses, it is just going to make me feel jealous and wish I had a bigger house! Its a shame that we couldnt just write about our dream house, that would be an interestnig thread, and then I wouldnt know about all those people who already live in dream houses Thu, Jan 07 , am My family of 6, almost 7 iy'h, lives in a small square foot 2 bedroom home with a great livable layout, but of course I dream of bigger.
But one thing I've learned from living in a small home is that I hate cleaning and organizing - and that more space just accumulates more clutter, and I like having everyone close and don't need a lot of space to spread out. For me, personally, having a smaller house is better in the long run. I'd rather have a huge butler pantry for storage.
Upstairs: - 4 - 5 Bedrooms with large closets would love functional built in closets and get rid of a lot of furniture - Master Bathroom and additional 1 - 2 bathrooms for other bedrooms would love sink outside of bathrooms - Laundry room Outside: - Garage or shed would be nice to store succah, bikes, balls and other outdoor equipment - Big Deck Last edited by sky on Thu, Jan 07 , pm; edited 1 time in total.
Thu, Jan 07 , am boysrus- I didn't mean for this thread to make you jealous- I was just curious if people really think "bigger is better" or would prefer to live in a small house. I've been reading online about minimalism and was wondering if anyone here feels that way. Thu, Jan 07 , am eta- I don't know if I would feel comfortable having a cleaning lady 6 hrs a day- I'm a SAHM who likes her space and privacy- so not everyone's dream is the same I was curious to see what people would say.
Thu, Jan 07 , am I live in a sq ft house, we are 5 kids 2 adults. Thu, Jan 07 , pm amother wrote:. Thu, Jan 07 , pm Bigger does not always mean much more to clean.
A large kitchen and many bathrooms and lots of carpeted rooms do take time to clean. However we have a great room that takes up a large chunk of our square footage. But that square footage is just wooden floors, which is not a big deal to clean. We have the same amount of bathrooms as when we had a small house. An additional bedroom or two is also not a big deal to clean and doesn't even have to be done weekly. Thu, Jan 07 , pm could you elaborate-that sounds so interesting!
Thu, Jan 07 , pm I love planning the layout of my dream house in my head! One thing I would love is a well covered outdoor area, like a really big porch that we could eat on when its nice weather. Years ago when I was in South Africa I saw that a lot of people had these beautiful outdoor rooms and I loved it. We had such nice Shabbos meals outside! I would love to have a study for my husband, he currently spreads himself out on the dining room table and we need to clear it all for shabbos each week A big laundry room, so that all laundry stays in there!
I end up with baskets of clean washing all over the place waiting to be folded and put away, I would love to contain it to one room. Tons and tons of shelves and storage!!!! We all love books and my husband has many many seforim, there never seems to be enough space for them all. The house we are renting now is bh quite spacious in many ways, but so impractical, for example we have no linen closet, so sheets and towels are on a shelf in the hallway upstairs.
Drives me crazy! The kitchen is also built in a really impractical way. Space wise it's big but the layout is just ridiculous and ill planned. I would love two proper big sinks, two big ovens now we have a toaster oven for milchig and a small parev area with a sink. I also dream about having a gorgeous garden one day. With a huge old tree that gives lots of shade, an area for planting herbs and vegetables, some fruit trees, lots of space for kids to play and a beautiful wood cubby house.
Lol I could go on for a while! Housing here is ridiculously expensive so I have a feeling I'll be dreaming until we win the lottery. Not outgrowing it any time soon or ever! I have a great layout, and yes I have dreams for some things different, but short of building a house myself or doing renovations with money I don't have, they will remain a dream I'm thrilled with this house and it works for us well.
We have a sort of split level. Linen closet in bathroom and in hallway and an additional storage closet in hallway. Main floor has LR and DR in an L-shape, coat closet still needs tweaking , large eat in kitchen, door to porch. Oh, and my office. I forgot about that.
It can be a small bedroom if need be has closet and window. Half flight down has a playroom and 2 bedrooms and a door to outside. Half flight down from that is basement with BA, laundry machines in furnace room, a couple closets, and a garage 2 car officially, but we park no cars in it because the driveway is so super sloped that we never drive down there.
We have room to spread out and make individual messes If I had even a couple hours a week of cleaning help, that would make my home a lot neater, but for now it is what it is.
Thu, Jan 07 , pm Our family of five, soon to be six iyh, is living in a two-bedroom apartment of about square feet.
0コメント