rocket354 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 11:38 pm When you buy a lot of house it might look great and you might feel great, but again like buying an expensive car you soon "adapt" and it's just another house. But the payments go on for even longer than a car. And the maintenance and repairs will be more, and the insurance and taxes will be more, and the utilities will be more, on and on and on.
It's not nearly as straightforward as it sounds. Although people should absolutely not overspend, a ton of people also fail to realize just how dangerous underspending can be.
Buying a cheaper house in a less attractive area will frequently expose you to some combination of a longer commute, lower quality public schools (this is a consideration regardless of whether you have school aged kids, as better public schools help with property values; there are a few exceptions, such as in certain very high end areas, where homeowners automatically send their kids to private schools), less stable neighborhoods, etc... This will frequently mean a lot less appreciation or even depreciation.
In terms of house sizes, while in general larger houses are more expensive to maintain, you may actually be surprised to find out that a spacious and well built house can have similar or even lower maintenance and utility costs than a house that's half the size. It's obviously true that a larger house doesn't necessarily mean that it's built well, just like there's nothing out there preventing smaller houses from being built well. It is just that as a practical matter, most smaller houses are built as "budget" options, while many larger houses are built on larger budgets, which allows them to incorporate things in them that may cost more up front but in the long run will also save money.
Smaller houses are not necessarily cheaper to insure. In fact, a lot of people out there are surprised that in a number of situations, larger and more expensive houses can actually be cheaper to insure, as a lot of insurance carriers have noticed that their loss data shows that larger houses are better able to withstand various natural disasters. Also, the construction quality also has a significant effect on your premiums, and most well built houses also tend to be larger.
This is the reason, for instance, that some of the best insurance carriers that offer the most comprehensive insurance policies will not even insure smaller and less expensive houses, as their loss data shows that larger and more expensive houses have fewer claims (even though the claims severity tends to be higher).
Having said all that, it's not all about the size. If you have a larger but poorly built house that lacks any protective features, is located in a way that makes it susceptible to various natural disasters, is far away from a fire station, etc..., it'll be more expensive to insure than a smaller house without all these negatives. The point here is that the cost to rebuild is just one of many factors that affects your premiums, so a lower dwelling value should not be taken as an indication that it'll be cheaper to insure.