Living large by living small

This is a funny one. It reminds me of old Soviet propaganda posters like "MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU." Whenever some kind of food disappeared from stores the government rolled out reminders of its harm to the population's health.

With all that extra money you spend to have a guest room in your house, you could afford to put your guests up at a hotel. Heck, you could probably afford the Ritz.

Temporarily downsizing from a 2300+ single family with finished attic and basement into 1200+ 2 bedroom "open concept" rental condo has really sharpened our focus on how much and what type of space we will be looking for when we buy. We have 2 large storage spaces crammed with stuff, and I've only needed to get out one box in almost a year. At the old space, we had many rooms, i.e. the guest room, dining room, porch/sunroom that we didn't visit for weeks, and yet we were still constantly in separate rooms from one another. Here life flows from one room to the next and we see each other a lot more. One thing I have learned though is that a condo is off the list. I really need more than a wall separating me from my neighbors (who are very nice) -- and since I have a 2 year old, I'm certain they feel the same.. :)

Too bad most 1000-1500 sq. ft. singles (cosmetic fixxers, mostly) that my wife and I are looking at are still overpriced, dilapidated, horribly located or some combination of the three.

We have just upgraded from a run of the mill urban 2 brms 1 bthrm to a nice 1800 sq. ft. town house with a lot of storage and we love it. In fact, I'd love to have some extra room I wouldn't know what to do with.

After living with my parents, two brothers and grandmother in the former USSR until I was 26 and renting in this country for 12 years I finally enjoy a luxury of extra space. You go ahead and downsize. I will do the opposite.

Yeah, downgrade to a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house on a four lane highway like route 18 in Weymouth so your mortgage is "only" $2000/month. The sad thing is most people in this state see that as affordable.

What a joke Boston's real estate market is. If only people would smarten up and realize that they're overpaying on their average, nothing special, 1300 square foot home to begin with..

Dear Boston......

It's a free country - you are not required to live here.

Please, go live where you find that right price home...

Remember to drop by and tell us how much you're making and how's your life in general.

I agree with you. We have alot of junk that takes up space and that we really do not need. Many of the rooms in our house we rarely used, including our "living room". In fact, we eat most of our meals in our kitchen instead of our dining room. What concerns me is where we would put visitors if we were living in a 2 bedroom condo. Our elderly parents enjoy their own rooms when they visit and our children, one of whom is of college age, will continue to come home until they become independent. Until then, we still use (infrequently) some of the extra space.

400-500 square feet per person is a good number. Any more than that and quality goes down to meet a reasonable budget. That's why so many McMansions are poorly constructed.
I'd take quality over quantity any day – it feels better, looks better, and ages well; unlike the alternative.

HBX,

Okay, I'll tell you how much we're making and how our life is in general:

We live in Virginia. We're making MORE than we were in Massachusetts. That's right. MORE. For the SAME JOBS.

Our commute was cut in half. We have mountains an hour away and an ocean two hours away. Life beats along at a slower pace. It's not nearly as stressful to live here than it was to live in the western 'burbs of Boston. Not as much traffic. People don't cut us off. If you let someone into a line of traffic, they honk and wave. Sometimes they even roll down their window and say "Thanks!"

Our 2700 square foot home (updated) on a half acre of land in a walkable, charming neighborhood cost us a whopping $230,000. That includes four levels of living space, a rocking chair front porch, an oak tree with a tire swing and flower bed. All the things we wanted. We sold our 1200 square foot (updated) home on 1/10 of an acre for $250,000.

The people are nice, kind and considerate. Within a month of our arrival, neighbors brought us things, introduced themselves and are always asking if there's anything they can do to make us feel at home.

Of course, there's a lot to miss about Boston. We're not going to deny that. But with the money we're saving, we get to visit Boston twice a year and can afford to attend a Red Sox game, go the Museum of Art, hit all the wonderful restaurants, etc. When we lived in the burbs of Boston, we couldn't afford to do any of those things.

Our new hometown has a wonderful art museum, theaters and restaurants, too. They may not have the same cache as our Boston counterparts, but they're nice in their own way.

You're right. No one is required to live in Boston. But many of us are seeing that the grass is indeed greener elsewhere. And many of us are moving. Most of our friends -- even those with family in Boston -- are looking to move. Some of our family members who were born and raised in Boston are looking to move, too. Most of the college students I worked with in Boston last year won't stay after graduation. They told me that they don't like the weather, the rude people or the higher cost of living.

We're better off financially, mentally and physically for making the move. We miss Boston. But not enough to trade in what we have here.

It seems that the process is the more difficult part - trying to determine what to keep and what to part with - and that living in less space actually comes as a relief to many people: less maintenance, less work, lower costs.
Once folks have a plan with information about which pieces can be reused and repurposed in a smaller space, or which pieces should go when downsizing in place aka decluttering, it's a lot easier.

Lauri Ward, author,
Downsizing Your Home With Style: Living Well In A Smaller Space

After cap and trade, we'll all be wanting less house to heat and cool

My husband and I live in a 960 sq. ft. house for the location. We are very economical with space. I use baskets above the kitchen cabinets for neat looking extra storage. The house is a two bedroom so the extra bedroom is an office/guest room with storage in the closet. We don't have much clutter. Best of all... Utilities are low - we only fill up our oil tank twice a year.

If you haven't used it in 2 years, you can:
Sell it on eBay
Give it away on Craigslist or Freecycle
Swap it at a swap party
Give it to charity (except kids' stuff; they can't sell that so you have to give it directly to kids likely to use it. Ask the daycare.)
Have a yard sale. If you don't have a yard, get some neighbors together and get permission from the city to use a park or the school playground. My neighborhood has one big yard sale a year and the proceeds go to Somerville Homeless Coalition.

My husband and I live in a 950 sq ft house and wouldn't know what to do with more space. I don't see the sense in paying to heat/cool and clean extra rooms when we barely even use all 5 of ours as it is.

I guess my self-esteem is solid enough that I don't feel the need to flaunt my paycheck with an unreasonably large house. Whatever makes people feel important, I guess.

When the economy started to go down under Bush, it was an "economic meltdown", a "crisis", and a " disaster for America". Now that the stock market has fallen 20% in 2 months under Obama, and he has added 2 TRILLION dollars to the deficit, suddenly we are "living large by living down". In other words, it is better to get by with less with a Democrat president, but it is a crisis to cut back if a Republican president is in office. What hypocrisy.

just right - you're a complete nitwit to denigrate all people who choose to live in larger spaces. You might think that your self-esteem is solid enough but your stupidity knows no bounds.

Margie -

If you're so bitter about Boston, and so enamored of your new digs, why are you reading a blog on Boston.com about real estate in Massachusetts?

As taken from the book/movie "Fight Club": The stuff you own soon owns you.

I went to an open house this week: young couple, one kid. Attic was full of old furniture, boxes, junk. Same thing with the basement. Same thing with the one car garage. Junk.

I used to be that way. Couldn't get rid of something. Now, for everything I bring in the house, I have the rule that something must leave. Buy a book? Sell the old one on Amazon (actually, since all I do is go to the library, I just have been selling my books a few every month. I have two small shelves worth of books left). Buy a new shirt? Get rid of one that I never wear any more. Haven't used that water glass in a year? Recycle it. Haven't used the PS32 or Xbox? Donate it to Goodwill.

I am so much happier with less stuff. It doesn't stress me out, and the things I have kept (a couple guitars) are all I need to make me happy in my free time.

Granted, I don't have a Soviet style 1 bedroom with three families living in it, so there is some excess stuff. But I have less in it that when I moved in three years ago. And I'm no longer tied to "stuff".

I'm living in a 2 bed 1 bath cottage style house with a porch in the front and deck in the back overlooking beautiful big old trees. I downsized about a year ago, de-cluttered my life and it feels sooooooo nice. It really is liberating.
I wouldn't want to live in a condo...I did that when I was younger. Especially in downtown Boston with old buildings and paper thin floors.
I think I'll keep this house until I die.

A 700 sq. ft. house in Arlington was on the market 36 days and now has an accepted offer on it. Very charming, California kind of place. Very nice, landscaped lot. I had a client buy a small attached single under 900 sq. ft. She loves it. It was on the market about 40 days.
About half of my clients are young women looking for smallish places.

I can second Sally's observations. My wife and I were looking at homes in the 900 - 1100 sq ft size. However, they are still "overpriced" (I mean that tongue in cheek.) The price per square foot really hasn't fallen enough to justify moving out of a rental of comparable size and amenities. As we wait for the seller to drop the price, they are sold pretty close to asking price. I suspect that higher density, smaller homes will be a bright spot in real estate for the near future: developer margins are higher, the price point is attractive, the amenities seem to fit well with the target demographics. (Though, I admit that Richard Florida's hypotheses resonate with me.)

We moved from an 1800 sq ft house into a 810 sq ft condo 3+ years ago. We still purge. In an unexpected way, it made us evaluate the activities that are important to us and also be more circumspect about out purchases. The next step is to empty the storage completely - it is 1/4 the size from when we started.

If you're OLD, or if you're a cat lady than you probably want a small house, and you're just swapping one for another. My point was true first time buyers are most likely going to be couples, and they're not going to want a house that is less than 1500 square feet. In the towns that I looked in to buy homes that were less than that sat on the market for a very long time, come off, then relist at the same price. They're just not desirable-in-places-other-than-immune-Arlington for cat lady's and old people.
Now post the Cat Lady comment because it's pivotal to my post.
I'm also done posting, as I'm not feeling the whole profile page thing.
The activities that are important to me, which were not included in my last post was not having the person I live with ON TOP of me 24/7 with no personal space. 810 sq. feet was barely enough for me to not feel closed in when I lived in an apartment. Maybe it's my age group.