Big homes are a mistake

Too much house – biggest personal finance mistake

Do not spend more than you earn. Everyone knows this.  The one exception is your home.

I am a Licensed Realtor in Florida. I know what I am talking about.  I should be telling you to shoot the moon, buy big and enjoy your life. However, since I am honest and not into sales, I will tell you what a good investment really is. A small home, not a tiny home mind you but just a home that is not too large.

Think Thomas Kinkade and home sweet home, not something out of the movie  “The Big Short”.

If you are talking about your own personal house, rather than an investment home, you should buy small.

Read my lips: the biggest mistake people have in real estate is buying too much house. Since they can get a mortgage now, because current income is rosy, they buy their maximum or close to it. However, I have seen too many people live a life of stress with too much house.

Cons of buying a big house:

  • More cleaning
  • More yard work
  • More repairs
  • More in utilities
  • Less marketable as few people in the market for large homes compared to small homes
  • More you are a target for lawsuits
  • Less room for personal additions as styles change. For example, we have a house that is 1665 square feet. If we want to add something it will be fully our style. But if you start big, adding on does not make sense.
  • Family is less close
  • In Poland Ph.D. s and Doctors I know lived in small quarters growing up, in contrast, kids from large homes were often messed up.
  • Less money to travel with.  When people buy an experience, rather than a tangible asset, this is a characteristic of a successful entrepreneur.
  • Better is to buy land that you can garden or generate income off of if you need to.  I personally have a 1/4 acre under cultivation in my garden and it pays most of our food bill.

A big home is a financial mistake and in my mind a sign that you have an ego problem

You need to be in a financial positive to maintain a positive cash flow over a lifetime. This is real security. Learn the economic lessons others are paying for with their life savings when their house is foreclosed on.

I believe in the cash flow theory of security. In fact, I use to have a bumper sticker in my room as a teen, that said ‘happiness is a positive cash flow’. I am writing this not out of arrogance or I know better, but because I personally see people’s lives destroyed by big homes. A rich man is one whose income exceeds his expenses, whatever that level of income is.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be – Shakespeare

The biggest mistake people do is too much house. If you take out a 30-year mortgage you cannot lose your job for 30 years or at least need steady employment. In today’s, economy that is not real. In the old days, you could just sell the house and pay the mortgage if you were in trouble. Now you are in trouble as home prices are going or at least flat.

Sell your house to pay off the mortgage is true today only if you bought your home ten years ago in many cases. In fact, the US housing market might not really start to take off for another ten years. But today there is still deflationary pressure on the housing market with no end in sight. Even if the economy recovers, the secondary housing market is a lagging indicator like unemployment and it will take years before some markets start to show life. The only hope for homeowners is inflation.

Therefore, it is the biggest mistake someone can make financially, buying too much house. Big homes are a mistake.

  • I am a Realtor and licensed Real Agent in the state of Florida. I see people dreaming of homes they can not afford, yet they feel somehow they need it and deserve it.

Why I have no debt

Me, I have zero debt. Never had any. It sounds crazy, right? Americans believe in debt or at least a mortgage. In contrast, in Poland where I live now, people often build homes with cash. They build more modest homes, but they do it over ten years pay cash. Once they have it, it is theirs.

I am not saying it is better, rather, if you step back from the whole process, objectively you do not need to buy a big house with a big mortgage. In fact, I might take out a mortgage this year, I am considering it. But if I do it will be for a very modest size house. I would rather pay it all in 5 to 15 years and have a small house all my own, than a large house which the bank will end up owning. I am not greedy. I may be an unrepentant capitalist but I am not greedy.

Big homes equal big ego

Maybe I am casting judgment too hard, but look all the movie stars that have multiple large homes, just because they can. For me, it is a waste. I would rather be like Warren Buffet, who lives in the same modest home he was married in 1959. I am from preppy New England. I see the large homes from Avon, CT to Lexington, MA with 4,000 square feet. I only scratch my head and ask why would anyone need that big of a house, except to build walls from their own family.

Often when people get really rich, they just buy a modest condo in Florida. Only egomaniacs need a super-sized home.

Living space quality
Living in a modest size home does not mean you have to live as a student, you have to choose your living space based on your personal heat-map of use.

Heat-map of what really matters in a home purchase is the square feet of high traffic rooms

One idea when looking at a house is not the absolute size of a house but the layout. The layout is more important for household happiness.  The reason is if you look at a heat map of the places where people actually spend time in a house it is:

  • kitchen
  • bathroom
  • bedroom
  • family room

It is not:

  • dining room
  • porch
  • living room

Also, consider:

  • The location of the Kitchen to the garage so you can unload packages easier rather than haul them up steps or through a maze.
  • Is there a window in the kitchen?
  • The location of the laundry room,  where are you going to carry clothes with your daily loads of wash.
  • How close you are to your neighbors.

Each family is different but it is something to consider, and this seems like uncommon common sense, but the flow of the house is more important than the total square feet.

Rooms people use in a house
Kitchen and bathrooms are where you should invest your space, as well as bed and living. Forget elephantine antiquated ideas like dining rooms and poaches unless you have a lake view.

The idea is to maximize square feet in rooms that count and make sure the home has a layout, especially a kitchen in relation to other room you like.  As a Realtor, I am in scores of homes that do not make sense even if they are large.

large homes make you poor
There are many grandiose homes where people can not make payments to maintain. I live in Florida, the rich downsize and enjoy their lives through travel. It is a new way as people are more aware. old school: the house is wealth – in contrast – new school: time is wealth.

Why do you need a large house anyway?

Besides heating costs and other maintenance, it makes families distant and cold. A big house is for show.

When I was growing up in the USA, the average home size was 1,400 square feet. Now it is 2,500 square feet. Now I live in Poland, I would say the average here is about 650 square feet. A generation ago it was 300 square feet. Witnessing these differences myself, I would not say kids grow up happier in larger homes than smaller homes. In fact, I would say the converse is true. When you grow up like my father did, with eight people in two rooms or my wife did with seven people in two rooms, the family tends to be very close and stay close their whole life.

When teenagers grow up in a smaller house, instead of having their own room to escape in and lock the door, you teach your children chess or read books and spend more time with them. This is what my wife’s family did. You could argue, except for your ego being pumped when you compare yourself to your neighbor a large home is bad for your family.

closeness to neighbors and happiness
Privacy is important for peace of mind.

Small rooms = great minds | big homes = consumers

Even today, my own family, the three of us, we live in about 700 square feet apartment (renting is only bad in a booming market). My daughter at 2 years old is learning three languages, English, Chinese and Polish and is learning chess as her fourth language. In such relatively small quarters in a cold dark place like northern Europe where you are inside 6 months of the year. What else is there to do but interact and use your imagination. Better than saving for her university education, I would rather spend time with her now. I am not poor, mind you. Nor am I cheap. I would rather stash cash away and invest it. We might build a house this year but again it will be very modest.

small homes are better
My 2-year-old and I playing chess on the floor of our small apartment in Europe. If we had a big house there would not the same interaction. She would have a playroom all to herself. Here, on the other hand, we play on the kitchen floor, but at 2 she is playing chess. By default, I spend more time with her. She is very happy to have her daddy in arms reach all day.

Think of all the great minds from Mozart to Einstein that grew up in small houses. In contra,st many rich and famous kids never amount to anything more than consumers.

Da Vinci – Large rooms weakens minds

Today people buy big houses and I do not think US kids are happier than Polish kids at all. In fact, when I read the high percentage of US kids on medication such as anti-depressants etc I wonder what is going on. When I read about the high level of divorce in America, something not found in places like India or Poland or Romania, I wonder why?

House sizes is even slightly inversely correlated to happiness.

Or at least there is an optimal size, rather than bigger is better. For most families between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet is more than enough home.

A better solution is to do like the Europeans, live in small houses but take six weeks of vacation, traveling with your family. I mean families in relatively poor Poland take a couple of vacations a year with their kids. If I was a kid, I would rather have the experiences of walking through the old ruins of ancient Rome or seeing the old town of Montreal with my family than living in a foofy house.

What about Tiny homes?

I am not a fan, they are too small for a family, maybe a hipster living off the grid, but a family needs some practical space unless a temporary structure while you build a larger home.

Better is to build a Cordwood home. You can look up any of the books by Rob Roy on the subject of Cordwood construction. You might have a small home but make sure it is HGTV for you. This will lead to greater life satisfaction.

If you are an investor and are buying a house as an investor to fix it up or part of your investment strategy this is, of course, a different story. But I am talking about a personal financial decision, not a business decision.

Therefore, for your personal finances and your personal life do not buy too much house. Big homes are a mistake.

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Comments

One response to “Big homes are a mistake”

  1. Elizabeth Bryant

    I totally agree. Right now, I am renting a 5 bedroom home (great price). However, I don’t need all of that space and my son, who is 18, spends most of his time in his bedroom. I feel like we are roommates. We would be forced to talk and/or engage if there was less space, but that brings other issues as well.

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