Choice of Residence

[plumtreeblossom]

[Poll #690264]

I realized that almost everyone considers both factors to some degree. But I'm interested in seeing to which side more people lean, which is why I didn't put a "Both Equal" option. Choose whichever is of more importance to you, and feel free to discuss.

Comments

[saturn939.livejournal.com]

I actually wouldn't want a large home. Large homes make me think of heating bills and how to keep the thing clean. I'd prefer as small a home as could comfortably accommodate me and my stuff, and I'd definitely want it to be in an area I'm comfortable with. Location and community rank MUCH more important than size of property with me.

-Dej

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way, I don't need a lot of space. What I need is proximity to things in my life, since I'm pretty much committed to a lifelong car-free lifestyle at this point. I'm always falling in love with cute little city houses, especially if it has a picket fence around a tiny yard. I see more picket fences in the city than I ever did in suburbia!

[mangosteen]

You can change the property. You can't change the location.

The best advice I ever got on the home selection process was "choose five things that are completely non-negotiable, and be flexible on everything else."

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That advice, verbatim, is equally good for people in the dating process. :-)

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

As of now I'm the only person to have chosen the first option. However, I choose it with the caveat that "largest" does not necessarily mean "best." Small is okay if there is character compatible with me. When I walk through the door of my home, I want to feel completely, well, at home. Decoration can take me a good ways there, but if the building itself doesn't welcome me, I don't want to be there. I don't mind traveling to be with my preferred community, but I do mind inviting people to a home that isn't representative of who I am.

I actually feel like my interpretation of the first answer isn't all that different than your description in the second answer. I'm more concerned with the property (inside and out) being compatible with my lifestyle/taste, than the area surrounding it.

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

(Sorry for the multiple comments here.) I should add that I've been thinking about "location" in terms of neighborhood, rather than geographic area. If you offered me my dream house in, I don't know, Siberia, I'd probably be hard-pressed to actually accept it. But I wouldn't be looking to buy in Siberia in the first place, so I don't know how far I can extend this issue...

Ultimately, I think a major purchase like this comes down to gut instinct, and it may not be as easy to separate out those two factors in that scenario. Plus, it probably depends on where you are in your life, whether you have kids, job security, and many many more factors. Head versus heart, passion versus reason, and all that.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my thinking on that question was centered more regionally, as opposed to globally. So no worries about dream houses in Siberia! But what if it were in, say, rural central Maine?

[wellstar.livejournal.com]

Same thing, I think. I wouldn't be looking at houses in rural central Maine unless I had a good reason to be there in the first place. (Job, family, significant other with a stronger need to be there than I had need to NOT be there.)

But if you're asking would I move there just for a piece of property? No way. (Okay, maybe as a summer home... ;) she says, laughing at her bank account.) Same with any undesireable location [ultra-conservative small town, neighborhood where I didn't feel safe, etc.]. I agree with istemi about the false dichotomy, and also with your comparison between home-buying and dating above. I was going to say in my first comment that making any large investment (financial, emotional, physical, temporal, whatever) has got to be a good balance between getting more out of it than you put in, and actually caring about/enjoying what you're doing/where you are. This applies to dating, jobs, family, living situations, post-secondary school, and so much more.

[istemi.livejournal.com]

That's a false dichotomy. You need a home you can live in. A large home 120 miles from work or a choice Davis Square condo that bankrupts the owner are both untenable.

( The coworker commuting from Easthampton to Waltham is moving closer in. The one who commuted from the Cape found a job closer to home.)

I'd compromise a certain amount in either direction, but purchasing a home is too expensive if you're going to be miserable in it.

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

ditto. if i'm buying, i better be able to have both.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

This was just something on my mind since talking with a group of coworkers about what we would do if our company relocated to somewhere more cost-effective, like a rural midwestern or southern area where labor and operations costs are lower. There was about a 50-50 balance of who would move with the company and who wouldn't.

Some said that as long as they could keep their Boston salary, they'd go because they'd be able to get a larger, nicer home with more property for a fraction of what they pay now in mortgage or rent in the Boston area (which is true). Then there were those of us who said we wouldn't go for a king's ransom and a castle.

The conversation was hypothetical -- our company isn't planning a move (that I know of). But it got me to thinking about the variations in what is crucial to different people as far as where they live. When I posted this survey I projected that I would be in a slight minority in my choice. So the result was surprising.

[istemi.livejournal.com]

Wff, what a narrow criteria. I suppose it could work for some people.

When I was 7, my family moved from New Jersey to Indiana. There was some serious culture shock. I was young enough to be oblivious to most of it, but my mom tells a story that sums it all up. She remarked to a neighbor how much she missed the beach. The neighbor said "Yuck, why would you want to go there? There's SAND."

I'm culturally a Northeasterner. There are other parts of the country I'd probably enjoy, but the deep south or rural midwest aren't likely candidates.

[fragile-rage.livejournal.com]

I have seen homes that otherwise may be valued around $300,000.00 be listed for half a million or more simply because they are in an upscale neighborhood. The location and community will carry more weight in the seller market than the house actually will. At the same time, I have seen people way over build in a neighborhood that doesn't carry the market and they loose their shirts in the end. They can't get out of it what they put into it.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

For us proximity to public transit was absolutely essential. One of the things that most sold us on this place was its being a block away from the red line. But there also seemed to be a good community evolving here, including several people we already knew. And the big backyard didn't hurt, either.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

I don't like either of the options you provided, so I'll try to explain.

There are lots of things that are important to me but not the most important. Sure, a nice community by the subway is wonderful. A snotty, overpriced community by the subway is not ideal.

I am flexible about the size of the property and the unit. I prefer near the subway (buses are not as attractive to me, given how they fail to work well in MA, particularly when it snows).

I prefer communities that will let you live your life and will not intrude and tell you what you can or cannot do to your life or home -- that pretty much eliminates large amounts of places in this state that either have a "homeowners' association" or a "historic society". When you find out that you might be sued because you painted your home a color you like or the blinds/curtain liners in your living room are not the right kind/color, almost anything else will turn sour, no matter how nice looking the "community" is or how much of a deal the property was to me... other people have different views, and they should go live in the restrictive communities and let me live my life.

The best home for my dollar takes top billing, and it's why I chose that option. If you buy a home that needs lots of renovations, you will end up overpaying, particularly in restrictive neighborhoods. I'm always astounded when people buy a home for close to half-a-million bucks, then This Old House comes and spends another million to fix it up to livable -- I don't think they'll *ever* get to sell the home for a million and half bucks, even if people would pay more to buy a home that was remodeled by This Old House, which I doubt.

People keep saying you can change anything except the location, but they have not lived in certain areas that restrict severely what you can do to your home -- there was a property that burned down in Harvard Square a few years ago and, wouldn't you know it, the powers-that-be wouldn't even let the owners rebuild the place the way it was because now they wanted all kinds of setbacks that would essentially mean the new place would be maybe 10x10 feet and, to top it off, that is "too small" to let anyone have a certificate of occupancy. So, the owners had to take a very extended time to "remodel" room by room. Really, if that's allowed, then why didn't they give the owners a variance from the start? Did they really want to be the stupid assholes of the year?