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Comment by jacob019 | Hacker News Reader

Can relate. After moving around a lot we bought our "forever home" 10 years ago. Forever doesn't last that long. A big house owns you. We're trying to sell.

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Interesting. I bought a small house (shy of 1500 sq ft) and would kill for an extra 1000 sq ft, despite the fact that it's just the two of us and we don't have kids.

How do you use the 1500sqft and how would you use the 1000sqft?

I use 1600 for main living, and 1200 in a nice "unfinished" poured wall walk out basement, with (insulated) concrete floor with no posts, as area for all storage, hobbies, crafts - kids roller skated, skateboarded, build forts, ping pong, foosball, TV, living room furniture, all winter long. I could even drive a car in. And it walks directly outside to an all sports freshwater lake. No additional taxes or insurance on 1200 b/c unfinished. You would not believe how inexpensive built new in the 2000s. People do make mistakes, in my opinion. Just watch how they buy motorhomes; same issue.

Not the parent comment but 1500sqft roughly gets you something in the range of an ordinary 2br 2ba (waving my hands vigorously on room dimensions, whether 2br 2ba is ordinary, etc). That's most people's "basic/ordinary housing needs".

So looking out from that position, people interested in another 1000sqft are usually thinking of hobbies, exercise equipment, shop space, media room, etc.

Interesting - we're contemplating buying our forever home in the bay area. Currently living in a 3 story townhouse style that's very walkable to whole foods, parks, caltrain etc. with a modest mortgage but considering moving into the more suburban areas / driving areas so we have a yard to set kids free.

What about the big house is owning you? Mortgage and maintenance?

Speaking as a child of the suburbs, transit-accessible urban areas are a lot nicer for the kids themselves. Even the nicest American suburbs suck for anyone who can’t drive.

Yards are great if you like gardening or have a dog, but I think most people overestimate how much the kids would use a yard. Some do use it a lot, but I think more commonly kids end up indoors, at the park, or in the street even when there's a yard available.

Maybe suburbs sets kids free, but as they get older, the suburbs are a prison. When the only thing teenagers have to do is smoke and drink and go to mcdonalds, life kind of sucks for them.

Mortgage is high, and we could put that money to better use but that's not it. We have yard service, laundry service, weekly cleaning service. But still the maintenance is stressful and overwhelming. 6500 sq. ft of space we mostly don't use. 3 HVAC units. Boat dock, so glad we sold the boat. I long for simpler times. Good years but I don't think I'll miss it much. Too much space fills up with too much stuff that isn't needed. Going through and taking care of stuff takes too much time. All the little things add up. One thing I now know is that space and stuff own you. Need more freedom.

I’ve found that one of the best investments you can make is a housekeeper and gardener. I have a big house with a big yard and definately could not do it without them. I live in a part of the world in which labor is very cheap so having a fulltime maid isn’t a financial issue. I understand that things might bw different in the US, but I don’t think it’s unaffordable to have someone clean up and do laundry a couple times a week and someone come to cut the grass every month or so. Maybe like $100/day for each? Only a couple hours of work if you are making a standard developer salary.

But it’s just the feeling of freedom that I like about it. My wife can cook things without us worrying about the mess. I can spend my free time as actual free time, instead of worrying about household chores.

Landscaping needs to be done at least every week, and I doubt you will find a house cleaner that does laundry for $100/day. You can assume half of wages go to taxes for independent contractors, plus a premium for it being contract work, so optimistically, $100/day is $50, and even at only 4 hours of work, that’s only $12/hour.

That’s nothing in any higher cost of living city, which is where most high income people want to be. That kind of labor will probably easily run you $200/day or more.

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