"Starter Homes" ??

[rszdtrvl]

Anyone still living in their "Starter Home"?

I am watching "Property Virgins" and they keep talking about starter homes.

When we purchased our home, we purchased it for keeps, with no intention of moving and starting that whole thing over again.

They were just talking about how your first home is a starter home, and you are pretty much expected to start all over and upgrade eventually.

Anyone here purchase home after home after home?? Anyone still in their first home purchased?

We bought our home 8 years ago, and as I said, we have no plans to move. Neighborhood is good, yard is great, house is fine (albeit a bit small at times) and we are happy, still.

 

[kirstenb1]

We left our starter home due to a job change in a new city. Otherwise, we would probably still be there. We only have 2 kids, so a 3 br/2 1/2 ba house was fine. We do have a bigger home now, but I'm lazy when it comes to moving, so I probably wouldn't have done it just for a bigger house.

 

[laurie31]

I guess technically you might say we had a starter home, but we didn't intend it that way.

I bought a townhouse right about the time DH and I started dating, because the rent on my apartment had gone up to the point where I could make a mortgage payment for less, plus I would have a yard, and the house would be mine - I could decorate how I liked, and get the tax breaks for home ownership. As a young single woman, I didn't need (nor could I have afforded) a house meant for a family, so the little townhouse was perfect for me and my dog.

When DH and I married, we planned to buy a "real" house (not that a townhome isn't "real" but it was much too small for children) and saved until we had enough for the home we wanted. So we lived in the townhome for 3 years after we married. I guess some might think of it as our "starter home."

The house we bought is the house we intend to occupy for the rest of our lives. At this point, 14 years later, we *could* afford something larger, but what we have is big enough and our neighborhood is great. There's not really anyplace else I'd want to move to, so here we stay.

 

[ilovejack02]

We bought our first home two years into our marriage. We were very happy in it. Cute little place about 1100 sq feet , great neighborhood , ok schools , but we weren't to worried about school situation. Always knew we would move one day , wanted bigger yard and more space between houses.


10 years later , schools didn't improve and we had a new baby . We bought a 2,000 sq foot house in great school district. Almost 1/2 acre , room for our boat and all of DH's toys , with a big shop for his tools.

We can stay here forever if need be , we like the house, but not love and we would rather have more property , possibly on water . Dream house is on a lake with land that DH can hunt on .

We have discussed staying here forever and buying a vacation house.

 

[maddiemom]

We have had 4 homes in the 14 years since we bought our first home. Moving out of our "starter" home after only 18 month but that was because DH changed jobs. Moved out of our 2nd home in order to be in a better school district for our daughter. Moved out of our 3rd home to move 1/2 way across the country. Tried to move out of our 4th two years ago but the market took a dive and we never could sell our current home. Will try again at some point, this one is just not the "forever" home I was hoping for.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

I never really liked the idea of a starter home. We have lived in our first home for 12 years, and have no plans to move. Maybe when we retire we will get something smaller.

We did live in an appartment for a couple years first.

 

[WDWBarb]

We are still living in the "starter home" that we bought 16 years ago. We had a newborn and were trying to get into a house in the district of a certain elementary school. We found something dirt cheap that needed some work but fit the rest of our needs (huge garage, good sized yard, 4 bedrooms, etc). When DD grew older, the middle and high schools we wanted were in this district and we had really started to pay down the principal. Now DD is 16 and I dream of moving but it doesn't make sense until she's out of school and well into college (we live in a great college town). We dream of retiring out of town on a nice piece of land and we're saving ever penny toward that goal.

 

[simba20]

I think, that if we had been fortuneate to buy a starter home/first home, when we were 25 or so we would have been out of it by now.

In some ways, our financial stupidity (credit card useage in our 20's) was a blessing. We started looking at homes last year (Jan 2009) to buy. Then stuff came up and we held off. We finally purchased our "first home" in June of this year. I am 34, my husband is 36.

However, I can atest that had a purchased a home in my 20's, my tatses/needs have definitely changed and I know that what I liked back then, would not suit me now.

The home we purchased, is slightly bigger than what we need, but allows us to grow into it. We only have one child now, but when/if we have another we certainly have room for him/her and us to be comfortable.

The house we ended up purchasing is 2200 sq, feet, 4 bedrooms (with a sitting room off the master bedroom that could be a nice nursery), and two bath. We have an eat-in kitchen and a dining room which is open to the living room that we currently use as an extention of the living room/playroom for DD. The spare beddroms are set up as: one is guest room, one is DD room, and another as her seperate playroom )but since she is only 3, she is not ready to be "away" from Mom and Dad, hence why we use the dinign room).

So while the hubster and I do talk about perhaps trading up someday, this house is a good fit and can be our forever house if need be.

Also, not buying last year helped us TREMENDIOUSLY. This house is in one of the neighborhods I like, but knew we could not afford, and built by a quality builder (I looked at many of his neighborhoods last year). This year when we started looking, we lucked out as this house was orginally listed above our self-imposed limit (yes we put on limit on ourselves, lower than what the bank approved us for) and had dropped $20,000 in price putting it at our limit when we saw it. We looked at it, and knew it had everything we wanted and needed and then took a daring risk and made an offer for $15,000 less than asking, which was accepted. It was also a short sale, and the family selling was military in the midst of transfer -- THEY NEEDED TO SELL!

So by waiting a year and suffering in our rental we lucked out. Getting a great house, in a great neighborhood, that fit all of our needs w/out compromises (well the yard could be bigger).......

 

[nmmom95]

We purchased our home right before we got married. We are still happily here almost 16 years later. We had an addition done about 6 years ago. We looked into moving, but we like it where we are.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

we moved out of our started home because we moved out of the area. But if we had stayed in the area we still would have moved. It was a great first home, if I could pack up and move just the kitchen I would, but it was in fact a starter home. Going into it, it was what we needed at the time but lacked a lot of wants.

 

[Robinrs]

It depends on your lifestyle and where you live. When I bought my STARTER home back in 1987, the realtor told me that the average person in Atlanta stays in their home for THREE years. It's a pretty transient neighborhood, not to mention most people buy their first home because of price and it's cute but it's the commute that causes Atlantans to trade in that cute little starter home for a shorter commute.

I'm on my 5th home in 20 years, only got this one as an investment and plan to stay here until my son is out of high school and the economy gets better. Unlike most people I don't get connected to brick and mortar. At all.

 

[SC Minnie]

If we had not moved to another city we would still be in our first home. It was 3BR 2 BA and fit out needs. We loved the location but didn't love the town not having any good jobs.

The house we are in now we expect to stay. The only way we would move is if one of us became ill and couldn't go up and down the stairs (all bedrooms are upstairs).

 

[bigbabyblues]

We're still in the first home we bought, but I never really thought of it as a starter home. It's pretty much what I wanted, although at the time I thought I wanted to build new. We have 2800 sq feet, two story plus a full basement, 3 BR, 3 BA with attached garage. We've been here almost 13 years with no plans to leave.

 

[Pembo]

Our first home was definitely a starter home. We knew we wouldn't be there forever (job change) however it was VERY small...barely 1000 sq feet and no basement. We had our first baby there and all the baby stuff took over the house.

Our second house would have been a forever home but again a job change. It had room to grow.

This house, our third, is our forever house and with the current housing market, we barely could make enough profit to cover the mortgage.

 

[rszdtrvl]

We have not changed much since we purchased our home.

Family size is still the same, DH's job is still the same.

Only difference is the amount of clutter has doubled.

We are a family of 3, and have a 3 bedroom, 1 bath home. HUGE fenced backyard. Smaller front yard.

While I would LOVE to have another bathroom, we do just fine with one. We do have a hookup for a sink and toilet in the garage, but seeing that the garage is DH's "domain", I cannot see how we would fit those in that crazy cluttered mess! I am lucky to have my freezer in there!

We peek through the paper at homes every once in a while, but honestly, there is nothing even close to what we have at the price we paid, or even $25,000 more than what we originally paid for our home.

 

[SAHDad]

We are not living in our first house, but that is mainly because of a job change and a move to a different city. If we were still living there, we probably would be looking at a new place about now, because while the house was very nice, and we loved the neighborhood, it would be getting a bit cramped with both kids, and some fairly space-consuming hobbies.

But we aren't planning on moving anytime soon. Sure, DW will look at a house, and think about it, but not in any serious way.

 

[RitaE]

Well our starter home was 3 states and 3 moves ago, but I doubt we would have stayed there anyway.

It was tiny, tinier than the apartment we moved out of to move into it. 2 tiny bedrooms and one tiny bathroom. 2 adults and one baby were cramped in there. I'd hate to think of it with three kids but I'm sure people have probably lived in worse.

Like most young couples we purchased it to start building equity. That isn't so easy to do right now but we did well. The increase in the property value paid our down payment on our second home.

 

[Disney Doll]

Our starter home will probably also be our finisher home.
It's plenty for DH & I, no kids, nice neighbors, nice suburban town, pretty well located to be able to get to Bostin, NYC, Maine, airports for WDW trips etc.

If I do move again it'll be because we decided to retire South. I don't particularly care for moving, but if we do retire South, my next place will be small and simple...not that my current one is big and ostentatious...pretty typical 1800SF Cape..., but we have accumulated a lot of "stuff", there's a decent size yard with the associated work and so forth...

 

[Bethenny]

Anyone still living in their "Starter Home"?

I am watching "Property Virgins" and they keep talking about starter homes.

When we purchased our home, we purchased it for keeps, with no intention of moving and starting that whole thing over again.

They were just talking about how your first home is a starter home, and you are pretty much expected to start all over and upgrade eventually.

Anyone here purchase home after home after home?? Anyone still in their first home purchased?

We bought our home 8 years ago, and as I said, we have no plans to move. Neighborhood is good, yard is great, house is fine (albeit a bit small at times) and we are happy, still.

It just depends on so many factors. After DH and I got married we were content to live in an apartment until we had children. He had children pretty early though. The house we bought could very well have been our forever home. But our salary increased dramatically in the 9 years we lived there, so there was no reason not to get a bigger house. We just moved in our second home and will definitely be here until our kids are out of the house and we decide to downsize (if that ever happens).

On the other hand, I have a friend who didn't get married until her late 20s and didn't have kids until her mid-30s. Since she and her husband had good paying jobs and no kids, they were able to buy much nicer first home than we were.

 

[golfgal]

We bought our "starter" home with the intention of staying there for a very long time. It was very small but had a double lot and was built to accommodate a second story so we were planning on expanding as needed as kids came along, etc. but, DH's company had other ideas and transferred us a year later. We have since moved several times and have owned several other houses. Our last house was the one I was never going to move from, but DH's job had other ideas about that. After this last move I told DH he could come visit me on weekends if he moved for work again. I anticipate one more move, into a townhome, when we get too old to do stairs