What would you decide when building your home

Hello!

We are in a dillema with my wife and we are getting very stressed for it! We cant decide how big would be our new house!

We are thinking either do it normal house with spaces to be exactly on our current needs, without any other classy extra things in the house. Or build a house that we will be definitely comfortable in for many years, with the below additions: formal dining and living areas in addition to the family areas, basement that we could use as theatre/gym, extra bedroom to be as a playroom, comfortable big bedroom and a comfortable kitchen.
However because we are building purely on our savings and loan, we are skeptical as to what to do! Shall we step back a bit in terms of the size of the house in order to be more comfortable in life, or the house should be build the house in order to feel that nothing will be missed in the future?

Anyone regreted that the extra areas that he was thinking were not build in the end, in order to be more comfortable with the spaces in the house?

Its a tough one to answer as its totally a matter of opinion. However if I was in this situation, I would go for the normal house without the classy extra things. It can be an investment property. Sell it in five years time and then you may be able to afford the classy house you want.

Better a smaller house and a comfortable mortgage than a big house and a crushing mortgage

Go with a house you can afford. Having said that changing home down the track will cost more money than getting it future proof up front.
As comment made in another thread wages increase every year. Your mortgage repayment stays the same. In 10 years the payment will be about 70% current value.

Wages increase or mortgage repayments increase?

wages increase

We went with a 29 square 4*2 thinking of future proofing in mind (the mortgage is under control so I am not basing this on cost alone) however, its surprising how little of the house we are actually using. We have not even walked in the rumpus, lounge or one of the bedrooms since hand over and the other is being used as storage. In hindsight, we could have gone for a smaller house and not been any worse off

So I guess my tip would be to really consider your lifestyle and workout what room you actually need and how much you will need in the future. Do you need a rumpus, what are you going to use it for?

Our family is growing, so I am sure we will put the other rooms to good use eventually….

life is all about balance. I heard a story of off guys who was bragging about how his house was the biggest in the neighborhood. A looked at the house and though to my self your home is actually the smallest in the neighborhood due to no backyard and the house actually looked ugly, ie the house might be big but the home was very small. . I was also told how this guy was trying everything to save money etc so he wouldn't spend to much. So this guys apart from a big house has nothing else to brag about. To be honest I actually feel somewhat sorry for him.

I would (and have) go for a house:

1. As big as you may need it to be. If you have kids (or plan on them/want them) and are building in a place you want to stay then the room will be beneficial, whilst

2. Being able to afford the payments at an inflated interest rate. Try working out what you payments will be if they go up by 5%. Could you afford that?

We are building a house that is big enough to fit a large family with room for all to move around. Basically room for another kid (have 1 so far) and a separate study. Shared/family bathroom has enough space for 2 to be in there together brushing teeth/make up/etc.. and obv an en-suite for parents. 2 interconnected living + a separate living space and an out door area.

If we had the money, I would have added another toilet, but the space/layout is there to add it later if needed/wanted. We 'sacrificed" fittings, furniture and other appliances(stick with a smaller TV for awhile still etc..) to get the space right.

I agree.. We are looking at our house being a long term thing so we have sacrificed some things that can be changed/updated (eg Stone benchtops, Splashback) and will not go crazy buying new things, so we could have the larger plan we wanted. It's much harder to change the structure than the cosmetic things!

Thanks everyone for your replies, i think i understood everyone's points.
We are planning to have kids, and this is probably something that is also in the way. If we had already our kids we would have known that we are ok with 2 bedrooms for example. But now we dont know what future might bring to us!

Agree with the above too!

This is our second house and hopefully our last!

If you look at buying a house in an area that you like why would you want to move? (Although I never moved house as a child so I'm a kind of person who likes to settle down roots and stay in one place!)

I found selling our first place that so much money was wasted with advertising and solicitors and agents fees that the few thousand you may save now you will waste in the future when actually buying that home that better suits you!

Prices are ALWAYS going to go up... so to get that extra room or couple of squares now may cost a few thousand more it will certainly cost you so much more in the future.

We built a 36 square home and there is only the 2 of us and a small dog! And to be perfectly honest with you it will most likely be the same for at least 5 years... and yes we don't use all of the rooms in the house... but in 5 years time when one of us has to be home with the children we will have breathing space with our mortgage as we have had 5 years of a "double income no kids" scenario smashing down at the repayments to build up some equity!

We decided to build a bigger house now so the rooms will grow with our family...

Hope this helps!