Preparing for the Future: What’s the Right Size of Home for Your Family

Buying a home just as you are starting a family is truly exciting.  It comes with thinking about what the future holds for you.  It welcomes aspiration and inspires you to have a dream for your family.  In this exercise, however, you have to pull yourself back to the present even as you look towards your future.  There are costs involved in home buying and you have to be practical in the decisions that you make.  If you are dreaming about having a bigger family, would it be wiser for you to buy a big house now or simply to buy a small home on a bigger piece of property?  It would be easy to visualize your brood of kids running around a big house, each with his own beautifully designed room.  But, it would not be practical to buy a 4-bedroom house when you only have one baby.  You can rationalize that you can use the extra rooms for other purposes while you are still building your family.  You might want to consider the cost of maintaining such an oversized house.

 

albeit on a bigger lot is smaller.  You do not have to fork over a lot of money at the onset when you buy your house.  This way, you can actually spend your money for other more pressing needs.  Or, you can invest your money and grow it so that you have more money to spend when the time comes for you to expand your house.

The maintenance of a bigger house is more expensive.  You do not want to have to deal with repairs and renovations on rooms that you do not even use.  Also, think about your heating and cooling expenses.  The more rooms you have in your home, the more you have to pay for in utilities and other maintenance expenses.

There is no certainty that you would want to stay in the same house for the rest of your life.  While this might sound a little pessimistic, it is a reality that people’s needs change through time.  Many people move through several homes throughout their lifetime.  Your investment would not be wise at all when you find out that you have to leave your home because you found a more lucrative job opportunity elsewhere.  A smaller house with a bigger lot will give you some flexibility in your use of your property.  You simply have to expand your house as you grow your family.