DIYbanter - View Single Post - 10 biggest home-buying mistakes

(Doug Miller) wrote in message gy.com...
In article , 127.0.0.1 wrote:

lifestyles change, it wasn't uncommon in the 50's and 60's to have
children share rooms, live in a house with only one bedroom, live in a
house without a "den"/entertainment room. People are more affluent now
and demand more from the home they live in. Maybe you want to remain
stuck in a decades old lifestyle but obviously many others don't.

Actually, if you go back farther than the 50s and 60s to around the
turn of the century, people in my town lived in gargantuan mansions.
Families were bigger and undoubtedly these mansions housed
grandparents and servants, and not just the immediate family. To say
the trend is for larger and larger houses is to only look at the last
50 years. Go back 100 years and the picture is more complicated.

I suppose people got tired of living with extended family underfoot,
and started moving out to the 'burbs in the 50s and 60s. Advances such
as washing machines made having servants less of a "need."

Today few people can afford to buy these piles (much less heat them
and pay for other maintenance costs) so they are being divided into
condos or in some cases torn down to make way for subdivisions -- yes,
large rambling single family houses but only a fraction of the size of
the century-old mansion they're replacing.

Another trend in our area is people downsizing and opting for condos.
Yes, these condos are quite luxurious and spacious, but much less
smaller than what the owners had before, and with no yard to maintain.

Many of these condo conversions include an in-law/au pair suite as a
major selling point. Which seems to indicate to me that there's a
trend back towards living with extended family underfoot, and housing
employees who help in the childcare. Still, these condos are only a
fraction of the size of those homes from the turn of the century.

It is true that the burbs around my neck of the woods contain two
types of housing stock: 1) existing houses from the 50s and 60s, which
lots of people buy and consider as "starter" homes; and 2) new
construction that is in the range of 2500-5000 square feet.

Around here $500K will get you either 1) new 2500+ square foot home on
an acre lot in the 'burbs, *or* 2) a 1500 square foot condo closer to
the city. There is a big difference in the size of the lot and space
within the house, and yet the price tag is the same. It boils down to
a matter of personal choice. I prefer the city and low yard
maintenance to a house in the burbs. We are a family of four and our
condo is just enough room for us. I suppose we could move out to a
1500 sq ft house in the 'burbs and have a smaller mortgage, but for us
it's not about a smaller mortgage - it's about living where we want to
be. You couldn't pay me to live in the burbs. (Heck, you couldn't pay
me to live in new construction ever again - has no character. I like a
sense of history).

jen