"Starter Homes" ??

[omghidanielle]

We lived in our 950 sq. ft. "starter home" for 25 years and raised 3 kids (and several dogs) there. No family room, no formal dining room, one bath (we eventually put in a 1/2 bath), no basement (washer & dryer in the garage), bedroom sizes 12X12, 10X12, and 9X10. The living room and kitchen were pretty big rooms.

I don't understand the idea that a house is "too small" once you have kids. If you want to, you can make it work.

We moved once the kids had all graduated from high school to be closer to my parents.

FWIW, our old starter home is now our son's starter home. They also have 3 children and have no plans on moving any time soon.

I don't understand this, either. My Mother grew up in a 3BR, 2BR ~1,100 sqft house and she had 9 brothers & sisters. I remember being in that house as a kid when there were 7 kids, 2 parents and a dog and it somehow not being an insane asylum. You just need to figure out how to make it work.

 

[CaliforniaDreamin]

We are still in our starter home and we plan on retiring in it. We bought our house when we were 22. We got an FHA First Time Homebuyers Loan. Our house is small, around 1000 feet, and I would love a second bathroom, but we are 14 years into our 30 year mortgage and don't want to start again. I just kick myself we didn't make the one extra payment to principle every year. We would have the house paid for by now. But we do have untouched home equity and a mortgage payment that has not risen. We have been able to just do upgrades on where we are. Plus, we love our neighborhood. It's on a quiet dead end road, we live outside of the city limits, therefore we don't pay city taxes, the school district is good and something we take for granted too much, it's so quiet out here. We are literally in the country, house came on 2 acres of land. It's humble but nice. Just the other day the Domino's pizza delivery guy commented on how nice and charming it is. That made me feel really good. We have worked pretty hard over the years to make it ours. I'm proud of it.

 

[AshleyW]

We're in our starter home.. er, condo right now. We bought it.. almost exactly 4 years ago. We just got a small condo that we could afford easily - and we usually make double payments on it. We're saving up right now for a down payment on a "forever house", and we're hoping to move in 2 years when we have our wedding & I'm done with nursing school.

 

[LuvOrlando]

We bought out home when we were 26. We worked, we saved, we put a huge chunk of change down on this house then I left my job to be a SAHM. My DH thought it was a starter home but I gave him fair warning that I'm not big on change and if he wanted bigger we should wait. Well he thought I was bluffing, I wasn't.. silly man, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I think our 2000 sq ft home is just perfect and now that we have an extra 500 sq finished basement I actually think we have too much room. In 6 years both of my kids will be out of the house and it will just be us again so I'm not budging. The only way I cold see myself leave is if we decide to trade our home for an apartment in NYC. There are lots of nice qualities about suburbs but people around here just have no pizazz. No interesting stories, no interesting lives... it's all just so dull, it's safe and it's a nice place to raise a family but conversation is an artless bore. I guess for me it's not about a starter home as much as it is about a starter demographic

 

[DWGal210]

I've lived in my "starter" condo for 5 years now. I bought it b/c the price was right, right amount of space for a single person (2 bedroom, 1 bath) and low condo fees. I sometimes get a wild thought about moving & I start checking the real estate listings. Sometimes I feel like I'd like a yard for my dog, more space for entertaining...but I have a very low mortgage payment & that's a good thing. Unless my circumstances change drastically, I'll probably stay for another 5 years at least.

 

[Debbie7452]

We bought our first home and lived in it for 19 years. We were lucky enough to get a house big enough to grow into. However, we still outgrew it by a lot! We bought it as newlyweds and had 4 kids there.

Four kids in a three bedroom gets tight! I still would have preferred to add on to that house and stay there, but really bad neighbor issues caused us to move on to greener pastures.

We are now in a much nicer home (and better neighbors) and will never leave here I don't think. The bad part is that our old house was almost paid for and now we have a new mortgage stretching out into infinity...at least it feels that way. I still have twinges of missing that old house...but I don't miss my neighbors ONE BIT.

 

[Tink888]

We're still in our first house that we bought after we got married 17 years ago. We bought with the intention to stay. Like the area and schools.

Sometimes I think I might like a change but I have no desire to start over with mortgage payments and paying twice as much for a home with half the space.

 

[HM]

We are on our third home in 22 yrs. We'll eventually have a fourth when this one becomes too big as the kids move out.
Starter home really was a starter at 900 sq feet, two bedrooms, one bath and a common room. We loved it, but with a family of four, it was just too small.

 

[mrodgers]

I feel the same way about that show. The first time homeowners want 4 bedrooms, three baths and granite counter tops, large yards etc. Pretty unrealistic for most folks.

All these shows are ridiculous (Property Virgins, House Hunters, all the renovation shows...) Would people watch the shows if the "characters" were shopping for a tiny dump?

We started in a mobile home. 2 bedroom, master bath, 2nd full bath, kitchen with eating area, nice size living room, 996 sq. feet. We lived there for 3 years before starting to look for a house. Payment plus rent was $450 and taxes were about $1100 per year (had a hearing about reducing the taxes, but they gave me the runaround.)

Bought our house in 2000, right before my wife took off for maternity leave. We gained a bedroom, lost a bathroom, lost eating area and the kitchen was smaller. Gained a basement and gained a 20x24 foot garage in comparison to the 18x14 shed at the mobile. The house, 1007 sq. feet so we gained 11 square feet.

Taxes on the house, roughly $1100 per year, same as the mobile. Payment on the house mortgage, $490, about $40 more. Insurance is roughly the same.

Would love to have something bigger. We have 2 girls, and they are still young, but I'm not looking forward to the future with only 1 bathroom. Over the past 10 years of ownership, income has been stagnant with hardly worth bothering with raises and decreasing overtime availability. We've been here 10 years and figure we are roughly halfway through until the kids are heading to college (hopefully) and then the house will be quite perfect for the 2 of us. We have 2 acres, all the apples and peaches we would want to eat, plums, cherries, pears, 40x30 garden, and I could stand naked in my back yard and wave to the neighbor and he would wave back oblivious to the fact that I was naked.

Structure can be changed. It's all about location, location, location. The house may be small, but I would imagine most of you couldn't fly an RC airplane in your back yard with out upsetting neighbors or without the risk of killing someone or damaging other's property.

The only bad part is, the 40 minute drive to go grocery shopping.

 

[Gigi22]

We are still in our original 1200 sq. ft. home. We have been here 26 years, and will likely stay here. Our house is paid off. The value of our house has more than doubled since we bought--we are in Canada, and our housing values generally have held in the recession.

We have made several upgrades to our house, and plan one more--we will put in a powder room and finish the laundry, changing out the water tank for a "tankless" model, and adding storage.

 

[castleview]

We knew we wouldn't be in our first house forever the day we moved in. It was only about 1100 square feet, 2 bedrooms with hardly a backyard and no where to add onto. Yet it was a cute old house that was private and a good deal at the time. We redid it from top to bottom and put it on the market after second child was born - a little more than three years later. We moved into a fairly new 2200 square foot colonial on two acres. It's a very practical house and we'll be here until the kids are through college (hopefully ). After that, who knows? As much as I love the "family home", who knows what our lives will be like in twenty years - where the kids are, if we want a new location, etc. With our insane driveway, I'd be surprised if we were here into our 60s.

I know plenty of people still in their starter home and I don't blame them. They have good locations, not very demanding mortgage payments, and save themselves from having to move/downsize when the kids are gone. I've also learned that the whole "we don't have enough room" thing can be remedied by THROWING THINGS OUT!!! I cannot tell you how many people have said "we need more space" when they really just have too much ****.

Bottom line: If I loved my first house, I'd still be there.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

We are still in our starter home. We did rent it out for about 4 years when we moved. I wish it was a little larger with the 3 young adult ds as it has no basement. Our neighborhood has gone a little down hill though.

We could afford to move to a better area/larger home but I just dont want to be bothered at present.

 

[AustinTink]

We bought our starter home in '97. 1800 sq. ft, red brick 1 1/2. It was the cutest thing I ever saw, looks like a gingerbread house. We had a kid, got more stuff and moved to another house in the same neighborhood, 7 years later. With that house we added another 1000 sq. ft. Long story short the neighborhood went to the dogs and we moved again to a better neighborhood. I gained another 1000 sq. ft., or so.

So we are in our 3rd house, in 13 years. I'm here 'til my kiddo goes to college. Then, I just might sell this humongous place and get my gingerbread house back. I still drive by it from time to time. You never forget your first.