anyone stay in starter home?

I would stay right where I was. Not being strapped for cash when it comes time to pay college tuition times two will be worth it.

I hope to sell our starter home in a few years and move further south where housing is more expensive. So, we will probably end up with one the same size or smaller.

Me. When we (my ex and I) first got out of college, we decided to buy a house that the mortgage payment was equal to what we were paying in rent. We were told we could borrow more money than we needed for this house, but we wanted to be safe. It took us a while, but we found a small cottage (built in the 20's) in one of the better neighborhoods for this area. 

When my ex and I divorced, I stayed in the house. At the time, it was about 800 square feet. I eventually refinanced my ex off the loan and did a small addition. It is still pretty small based on modern home standards, but the layout works really well in that everyone has their own, surprisingly, private space.

I have no desire to move-until I leave this town anyway. It is a great little house, in an amazing neighborhood (the smallest house on the block deal.)

 

We thought we'd move by now. Our home is nice, but not fancy. It was a new build when we moved in 6 years ago, but smaller than we thought we'd be happy in long term (1800 sf). We bought well under what we could afford because we weren't sure what could happen with the economy and DH's industry is not particularly stable. We got a screamin' deal on it because we bought in 2009 when the market was tanking and the builder had a lot of completed inventory to unload. And our mortgage rate is lower than we could get now. And we don't *need* more space - we'd just get more stuff to put in it. And we're in a great location. And and and.

So yeah, we're staying for the foreseeable future. Not what we thought would happen, but we are totally at happy with it. Our mortgage is extremely affordable, even if only one of us worked. It gives us plenty of options to save more for retirement, travel, college, etc.. We've thought about keeping this as a rental and moving to a bigger, fancier house, but really, that would not bring us any more happiness in day to day life, so what's the point?

If size is what determines a "starter" home, I guess we've been living in one for 40 years. LOL. Our house is 1600 sq. ft., and I've never thought of it as small. Two adults and two kids and nobody seemed to be under anybody else's feet.

Yep, we are still in our starter. We had intended to sell in 5 years and buy up, but the market tanked and we lost tons of equity, and now we are back above water and staying put. We are halfway done paying off our loan and I would love to be debt free in ten years, not buying up and starting the clock over again.

Our place is small and doesn't have everything we want. Except being half paid off.

A few of my friends who are nearing retirement age have stayed in their starter homes their whole working lives. The wealth they've been able to amass by paying off and staying put, even on incomes below the area average, is remarkable. We are in a very pricey housing market and are of moderate income, so that influences our financial decisions as well.

We are still in our first house. 16 yrs, i dont forsee us moving. Only 1800 sq feet, but a lovely 5.2 acres:)

I agree and that's exactly what we did.

We have lived in our starter home for 11 years. I don't see the point in moving "up", so to speak. I've got one kid that's already graduated from high school and may be moving out soon, and one kid half grown. Once they are grown and gone, this house will be plenty big for my dh and I (and dh isn't here most of the week.) We would just full a bigger house with more stuff and I'd have more to clean. So unless our neighborhood just goes south, I see us staying put.

DH and I did this a year and a half ago, do you have any regrets? DH and I stretched ourselves just a tad to make it work, but we got into a house I love, it's a GREAT town with top notch schools and services that we wouldn't be able to afford even today. Sometimes I wish I would have bought a cute little starter house so I had some vacation money! I'm hoping to have a job by this time next year, so once that happens it will be smooth sailing!

FWIW, I think part of the point of calling a segment of the market "starter homes" is to entice people to buy homes when otherwise they might not think they are ready (it's a starter home, so obviously you are ready to buy a house) and then to persuade them once they are stable and a little older that obviously this home can't be enough for them (it's just a starter home).

I didn't buy a house until I was 30, and it was actually bigger than the second house we bought (we moved from a moderate-COL area to a high-COL area).  That second house is a pretty modest arts and crafts bungalow, and had we not gone from two to 5 2/3 kids, we would never have looked for another house.

I guess I have a vastly different idea of what a starter home is. I guess it depends on where and how you grew up.    I grew up in a 1545 square foot ranch home - there were four people living in that house in three bedrooms. And I never felt like it was too small. I consider that a family-size home rather than a starter home.

Our home when I was first married in 1993 was a 900 square foot, two-bedroom home that actually originally belonged to my now ex FIL's family - he and ex-DH renovated it for us. It was us and our toddler daughter living there. We lived there for four years and then sold it and moved for our jobs.  

My SO and I bought the house we're in now two years ago. It's 1850 square feet, has three bedrooms and has a full, unfinished basement. We got a great price on it and bought it specifically because it's not too big. When my younger two kids have flown the coop in four years to go off to college, it will be the perfect size for just the two of us - large enough to get space when we need it, but easy enough to keep clean and maintain. We have the option of finishing the basement as an additional living space or in-law suite and we have room to put in a workshop if SO decides to tinker with cars in his retirement. 

As for your situation, unless I was really unhappy living there, I'd stay there and save the money. No point in making yourself house-poor when you really don't need to. 

Jen

we have been in the first and only home for 30 yrs. it was as much as we could afford at the time...1600 square feet. we have invested more than the purchase price in repairs/remodeled. our three kids grew up and 2 are gone. it is fine..except for the 34 stairs up to bedrooms. but we can't afford to move ..property tax based on what we bought the home for...and it is worth about 10 times as much these days.

We are currently living in the home I bought when I was single and 23. The location no longer suits us, and various other factors have led to the "five year plan", in five years we want to buy a new house an move. We haven't had a mortgage in years, so it will be tough to give that up, but it's pay or stay, and we know we aren't happy staying.