We've been discussing trading-up because of young families who need more room. I wrote about trading up in 2007. My advice on how to evaluate your current space bears repeating.

Back in 2007, my client decided that he couldn't live with the kitchen torn up, didn't want to move into a rental, and an addition with a new kitchen and a family room would not solve his problem. The addition would let him use the existing kitchen during the construction and add the family room he wants. But afterward, the house would be too big. He said something like this: “It’s not about the amount of space; it is about the useful quality of the space.” The addition would make his house bigger, but leaves wasted space to be heated, maintained and cleaned.

You need to know how much and what kind of space you need. That takes some imagination. Here’s my advice for thinking this through:

Set your priorities: Which rooms do you spend the most time in? Seek a house that has those rooms the way you want them. If you need to skimp somewhere, do it on the rooms that you use less of your day.

Think into the future: If you family size is likely to expand or contract, imagine your space needs based on those changes. This could be as simple as choosing a level lot, so that you can fence it in for the safety of children and dogs. It can be as complicated as imagining the space needs of children who are not yet born in a house you want to stay in until they get out of high school.

Isolated or social space: Consider not only the room sizes, but also how the rooms connect. Isolated spaces are good for sleeping and working. Open spaces are good for social time. If you have enough of both, you can switch their use as the number of family members changes.

So what happened to that buyer? He and his wife went looking at trade-up houses. They got pretty frustrated.
Then opted to build a modular. I hope they live happily ever after; it was a lot of work and time to get where they are today.

Does this encourage you or discourage you from trading up? Why?