Ragoo said:

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AggieFrog said:

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i would say the millionaire next door would stay in the $350k house forever and no one around him would know he was a millionaire.

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That's us in a $250k home. Really don't care for huge, expensive homes. We're at 2,500 sq. ft. now and if anything will downsize once the kids leave in a few years. Both cars are also over 6 years old and nearing 100k miles (both paid for years ago).

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i don't understand downsizing.

When your kids move out and have there own families. Presumably you will want to host them and their kids at your home. A downsize makes that less accommodating. And if they feel like it is a lot of trouble to come visit they won't come visit.

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Quinn said:

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Where are y'all getting these sub-$300,000 homes? Or is that what you bought for over a decade ago? We didn't see much at all in Dallas proper (or the suburbs we liked) for under $300,000 back in 2016, and that was looking for a 3/2.

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Ragoo said:

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Weird. We always stay at my parents or in-laws when we go visit.

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AggieFrog said:

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Ragoo said:

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Weird. We always stay at my parents or in-laws when we go visit.

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Do you live < 30 minutes away? Kids have stayed, but not us (no reason to).

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Ragoo said:

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AggieFrog said:

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Ragoo said:

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Weird. We always stay at my parents or in-laws when we go visit.

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Do you live < 30 minutes away? Kids have stayed, but not us (no reason to).

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no and I wouldn't assume your children will live that close in the future.

Just my opinion with regards to downsizing.

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AggieFrog said:

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Quinn said:

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Where are y'all getting these sub-$300,000 homes? Or is that what you bought for over a decade ago? We didn't see much at all in Dallas proper (or the suburbs we liked) for under $300,000 back in 2016, and that was looking for a 3/2.

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We have a 4/2.5 just west of 820 in far west Fort Worth. 20 minutes to downtown FW, 10-15 minutes to Camp Bowie, or 20 minutes to Weatherford. New home built last summer for 250-ish on a larger corner lot.

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Quinn said:

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AggieFrog said:

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Quinn said:

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Where are y'all getting these sub-$300,000 homes? Or is that what you bought for over a decade ago? We didn't see much at all in Dallas proper (or the suburbs we liked) for under $300,000 back in 2016, and that was looking for a 3/2.

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We have a 4/2.5 just west of 820 in far west Fort Worth. 20 minutes to downtown FW, 10-15 minutes to Camp Bowie, or 20 minutes to Weatherford. New home built last summer for 250-ish on a larger corner lot.

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You can build a house for $250ish? Land included? No saying you're lying (promise), just would have never guessed that. I would have figured it would have been more expensive. Our next house will probably be in the suburbs between Dallas and FW, and I'm budgeting $350-400 for a 4/3.

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Ed Carter said:

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West of 820.....aka BFE with neighborhood being built on top of neighborhoods. That's why he built so cheap...

And it's funny you think your kids won't ever be coming to stay with y'all when they are older and have families of their own...

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CaptnCarl said:

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So where else are you putting your cash? The stock market?

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CaptnCarl said:

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So is it fair to say you're mainly trying to avoid the increase in tax liability in a $300k home? Or your cash will appreciate faster in stocks vs real estate?

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Rice and Fries said:

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YouBet said:

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The great house debate is pretty much a weekly occurrence in our household....usually on the weekends once my wife starts perusing the Ebbie Halliday app (Dallas based). She kind of got me addicted to doing it too though.

For us, it's primarily an academic exercise and done out of boredom because we already have a second home on the coast (inherited), but here are the points I keep coming back to on upgrading to a $1M house (for example):

• It's the just two of us and once you start getting into that price range the resulting square footage would be ridiculous for two people. The idea of having to maintain that much house gives me seizures. Our current house is 3,400 and that is really too large for us, but we at least use all of it due to the layout.
• The resulting cost of furniture and crap you would have to buy just to fill it is pointless extravagance.
• Maintenance and utility bills for that house. Oy vey.

Our current struggle is that we would really like to move out of Dallas, but our commutes are awesome and I just don't know if we could survive that trade off. Also, what I would really want is a smaller, one story home that is totally decked out but those types of houses simply don't exist here. We would have to build it or completely gut and renovate an existing home which is also something I have zero desire to do. So, we stay.

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Do you guys have kids?

My curiosity is that if you did and have two or more, what would your stance be then?

I would feel that somewhere like Fairview and a 4000sf would be perfect if you had two or three kids and you had ~10 years before the first one started falling off to go to college would be good.

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zsh0 said:

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I am frequently astounded by the levels of consumption that I see on a daily basis, relative to what I know to be the income and net worth distribution in America.

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This is what worries me in the long run...the 1% of people who worked hard and saved and invested are going to get the shaft when the government has to take care of the other 99%. Either by direct taxation on the "wealthy" or indirect devaluing of worth by printing money and inflation, the chickens will come to roost.

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Rice and Fries said:

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I do think we will see a devaluation in real estate assets. I work in CRE lending and it's rife with borderline fraud.

Example: someone buys an old apartment complex, slaps some light renovation and new coat of paint on it. Jacks the rent up a few hundred/month. Then they go get it refinanced with a new valuation that is 25%+ higher. Take the cash out refi and keep doing it.

Now I'm not saying that is not a viable money making strategy, but there's only so much room to push rents. Older apartments are historically occupied by the working/blue collar workers. Their wage growth isn't growing and with looming high unemployment, you'll start seeing these "flippers" give the keys back to the lender. I just think we will see a purge of these high leveraged operators with no cash reserves.

But In the long run (18-24months), we are going to see the effects of money printing and see high inflation.

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Bocephus said:

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How many of y'all plan to live in your current home in retirement?

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Bocephus said:

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How many of y'all plan to live in your current home in retirement?

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