The following is a post by staff writer Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. Her blog covers living expenses, saving for your future, and the fun stuff along the way.
I was talking about our home the other day, and my friend asked if we were going to move into something bigger anytime soon. My immediate answer was, “Not until we at least pay off the mortgage.” What I was really thinking was, “I really hope I never have to move again because the whole process was stressful. But, my husband wants something bigger pretty soon.”
In short, even if our house was paid off right now, I do not want to move. Here’s what I remember during 2007 when we were buying a home:
1) It was hard to convince our real estate agent that we really were staying at $130,000 or less. She also didn’t seem to understand that I really wanted “or less.” My parents actually ended up finding our current home by accident while cruising around a neighborhood we were already looking in.
2) Finding a home that fit our criteria was difficult. We are spoiled. We wanted a well-built home that wouldn’t need a lot of repairs for the first 5 years and we wanted to pay $130,000 or less. That was pretty much it but that severely narrowed our options.
3) While actually looking at homes, we found out that there is a whole host of things that we cannot accept. I could never live on concrete floors. My husband and I really wanted to avoid a house that would need wallpaper removed from every, single wall. We didn’t want to have to repaint every wall either.
I didn’t think we were all that picky, but some people’s tastes were so far from our own that we cringed when we walked into each room. Is it so wrong to want to avoid as much work as possible, especially in that first year after making a huge 20% down payment?
4) My husband and I do not handle stress well…and we were worse 3 years ago. I get clingy and he gets snappy, so we were just ticking each other off along the way. Picture a 23 year old husband and 24 year old wife just sniping at each other immaturely every time something didn’t go smoothly. It was awful.
5) Moving was a pain in the rear. We had lined up a company to move all of our furniture and boxes the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but the morning of the move rolled around and they didn’t show up! None of my calls were answered. By 11am, we knew we were in trouble.
All our stuff was packed, so we had to call my in-laws to get some numbers of other moving companies. One of those companies were kind enough to fit us in, but we ended up spending at least 6 hours twiddling our thumbs in complete boredom since we had to stick around in case they popped up. The final price was also $100 more than we had worked out with the other company so we barely had enough cash to cover the total…I felt so bad not being able to give those guys a great tip.
6) Unpacking is my idea of torture. I do not enjoy decorating. I don’t have the proper genes or something. I’ve moved and unpacked at least 8 times in my life and have hated it each and every time.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret moving into our home despite all of that. I do love our house. I adore being able to host potlucks. I love the fact that we have a small yard for our dogs. I appreciate being able to decorate as we see fit and knowing that we won’t have to pack everything up anytime soon. I just think I want to stay in our current home until my knees can’t stand the stairs anymore. :-)
Do you ever want to move again?
My husband is the same way. We live in a decent sized 2200 sq. ft. home. Been there for 7yrs and made it our own by doing home upgrades. I love my house. We bought the house on our own. No co-signers. We sold all that we could to free up some money and pay down debt in order to move into it.
But now he wants a house on the water. I don’t plan on moving. I want to pay my home off and just live there rent free (minus property taxes of course). Why would I pay off my house, just to go get another mortgage on another house, and start all over? After thinking about it, it didn’t make sense to me.
I daydream of what my life would be like without a mortgage. I would finally be able to contribute large amounts to my retirement. I could eventually work a part time job and spend more time with friends and family, and whatever my passion is. I would have more time for running and working out. I could volunteer.
But I also know that there are many other reasons why people would mortgage another house.
@Melyssa, exactly! Why must we have more space? Why move to be by water? 1750 sq. ft. is great for a couple with no kids and 2 small dogs like us! I swear my husband only gets these ideas because of some of the houses our friends have…good luck with your hubby too!
Moving…oh my god it sucks so bad. I refuse to pay for someone to do something I can do myself, but after this last move I have reached my limit.
Rain, four flights of stairs, my excessive book collection, etc.
It was awful and next time we move I am going to pay more money and then I’m going to go play golf or something. The movers can call me when everything’s all set. I don’t even want to watch them move my stuff…I’ll feel guilty and start chipping in.
@Writer’s Coin, hahaha. Yeah, Mr. BFS and I loaded up our cars and checked on random stuff while they packed our stuff into their van so we wouldn’t feel as guilty, lol. There were 3 guys so I was able to stay busy when they were unloading simply by pointing every guy in the right direction, lol.
Moving was ruined for me on my 10th birthday when I moved about 100 miles. I’ll probably continue to resent my parents for making me associate my birthday with leaving all of my friends behind…
@Daniel, oh, that stinks. I’m sorry. We moved from Holland to Argentina two days before my 16th birthday and I was sooooo ticked…I had just made new friends and we were going to a country that didn’t even speak English to start over yet again…
Moving sucks but for a new, nice home that’s a pretty good reason. We bought our home 5 years ago and our mortgage with taxes and insurance is just under $1,000 and it’s something we can afford now. We’re happy now but with more children it may lead us to look for something bigger.
@Jerry, yeah, if we have kids, we may have to look into something bigger, but as long as it is just the two of us, I’m happy where we are.
We didn’t want to move again when we moved here the first time. That’s why we bought a huge house even though there weren’t any kids on the way yet. We didn’t want a starter home. (We overestimated though… next time around, if we ever move, we aim for 2200 sq ft.)
@Nicole, I didn’t know we were looking for a “starter” home, lol – just a cheap one. I thought that our 1750 sq. ft. house would be fine for the two of us long-term…I guess Mr. BFS and I weren’t on the same wave length on that one, hahaha.
Oh man, this brought back horrible memories of our most recent move. Oh, and the SEVERAL before that due to moving for jobs, a foreclosed on landlord, and so many other reasons. I can totally empathize with unpacking being TORTURE (although I also consider packing to be torture). And the stress. And everything else.
Recently looking for a house, we too had an amazingly difficult time finding a real estate agent to stay in our budget. We actually fired one woman who claimed there were “no houses” for under $250k in the area we were looking. When I mentioned several addresses of homes I knew of under that price, she got all twitchy. Fired! But even our real estate agent we kept always seemed to be wanting us to pay more. I suppose his commission was on sale price, so more is better for him. Talk about mis-aligned incentives for buyer and agent.
I want to move but only to be in a nicer place, but all the things you mentioned are so true, and make the thought of moving a potential nightmare. The thought of packing all of our stuff and unpacking it just makes me shake my head. With the real estate market where it is right now, agents really don’t get what you mean by a “budget”. Thankfully I have some friends in the industry who may be sympathetic to our budget.