Anyway, so I was thinking today about my bathroom update (no, I still haven't bought the vanity top- been a busy week!). I don't really have a budget for it, but I am well aware of the choices I am making and I have been scaling it back more and more to save money. I think at some point it occurred to me that this condo is not my forever home. Therefore I am making some upgrades in order to compete with the newer-build condos around me, but I am not going above and beyond to transform the space into what I would love most (like new tiles in the bathroom). I spend a lot of time weighing resale value when making decisions.
I have just been wondering when I will know I am in my forever house! Is it when you are married? When you have kids? What if you accidentally pop out quintuplets? Then you may have to move for more space (and sanity). I just wonder if it ever gets to a point where you would be willing do an upgrade for YOU and not think about resale value. I'm not talking about tiling an entire bathroom in hot pink, but just replacing perfectly good things with something you'd like "more". Is that a bad financial decision?
I spend a lot of time selection items for my place that I love and so I am not saying I haven't made this condo a home, but I could pack up everything and the only imprint I have made on this place are a few shelves, painted walls, and a hopefully soon a new bathroom vanity and balcony floor. Sometimes I get a little sad to think of someone moving in here and how the place will quickly switch over to someone else's home. Maybe that is just a reality when you buy a newer home and therefore don't need to invest in upgrades? Some financial experts say you should invest 1% of your home's value into upgrades each year but I can't think of what I would spend all that money on!
I wonder if I will go for a bit of a fixer-upper next time, or buy a newish build again (I'm the second owner and it was only a year or so old when I moved in so it was basically a new build).
HEY- I just realized that my condo turns 5 years old this month! Happy Birthday condo!
I have loved living here, but I do think about my next place sometimes. I have no idea where that place would be, but it would probably be a house and therefore out of the city. I am also not handy so I doubt I would buy a "handyman's dream". I guess time (and budget) will tell!
Are you in your forever home? How did you know?
FYI- My dream home would look like this:
Unfortunately, I have never seen this style around here, plus I am 99.9999% sure I could never afford it if it did. Sigh, a girl can dream :)
Love the dream house! It's fun to dream about what a future house would look like--even if it's the one you are in!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I LOVE your dream house. It's gorgeous and I could totally see you living there and blogging all about it. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that I'm in my forever home. Obviously things could change as unforeseen events may happen but we have no intention of moving. When we found this house, it was so perfect for us and fit all of our wants. It just fit us and we knew it would be our *hopefully* forever home.
It's kind of nice to know that we would like to stay here forever so that we can upgrade things and change things as we want. We've been doing a ton of work outside building chicken coops and planting hedges, as well as slowly adjusting things inside. I would definitely be sad if we had to move now, and we've only been here less than 2 years.
That is SOOOOOOO gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteHi Casey
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your Dream Home.Not sure when a person knows it's their forever home as nothing is ever garanteed. I love my home and will be sad the day I have to move. We added(about 4 years ago) a Gazebo/Sunroom attached to our house going down a few steps into our backyard where we are presently spending our time mostly every single minute we are in our house. It's just a few step down from our kitchen. It will take a few people to remove me from this house now.
Keep us posted !
Angele
Angele
Love the picture of your dream home!
ReplyDeleteRobert and I feel as though our house is our "forever home", but of course that could change at some point.
While some couples our age might have bought a "started house", we made a list of what we wanted in a house when we started looking. Our list included hardwood/tile floors, fairly large lot, at least a 3/2, good school district, and a garage or carport. Thankfully, the only thing on that list that our house didn't have was a garage (and we hope to add one soon). So with that in mind, we have made updates that we like, rather than things that will be appealing to potential buyers.
Having said that, even though we consider out house our "forever home", we know we aren't likely to be its last owners, so we still factor that into things a little bit.
I grew up moving every couple of years so the concept of a Forever Home is a foreign one to me. On the flip side, Alan's parents lived in the same house from the time he was six years old (they're still there). With the recent sale of our house and our current rental situation I have no idea where we'll be at next year at this time, let alone 10, 20, or 30 years from now and that's kind of exciting to me.
ReplyDelete