Late 30s/early 40s - how many homes have you bought and sold?

[Anonymous]

DH and I were college sweethearts and bought a condo when we got married in our early 20s. It was small and in a noisy area, so we sold that after 6 years (basically breaking even) for a single family home. We’ve been in that house for 2 years now and it’s turned out to be a lemon, and the neighborhood is pretty unfortunate with bad schools. No kids yet but obviously this decision was pretty short sighted, and I’m realizing that by the time we have a school aged kid we will more than likely want to move yet again, so we’ll probably only be in this house for 8 years and will likely lose money when we sell as we’ve had to spend so much on repairs. Are we especially stupid or have others had to buy and sell multiple times before landing on a place you can stay in for a long time?

[Anonymous]

We bought at 23, too far from the city. Sold and bought again at 27 closer to city but very small. Stayed there until 40 when we built a home. We have no plans to leave.

[Anonymous]

Three.

[Anonymous]

We are still in the first house we bought. We’ve been here for 14 years— probably will stay for another 10 yrs at least.

[Anonymous]

I think we've sold 4? We own a building of condos so we've bought a lot more than we've sold. We started our family in a small 3 bedroom and moved when the kids were 4 and 5.5. No big deal to move when they're little.

[Anonymous]

Not what you asked but, if you can, move sooner so your kid has neighborhood friends before school starts.

Anyway, this is my second house. Owned a TH for 10 years, sold it to move to a larger detached house nearby. This house is not terribly old but there is lots of deferred maintenance and it's cost us more than expected so it is a lemon in that sense. No plans to move again soon. I'm 43.

[Anonymous]

One. Bought at 26 (DH was 30). Now 45/49 and still in it.

But growing up, my family moved about every 4 years. Only one was a move to a different city, we mostly just shuffled around to different neighborhoods or a bigger house.

[Anonymous]

DH and I were college sweethearts and bought a condo when we got married in our early 20s. It was small and in a noisy area, so we sold that after 6 years (basically breaking even) for a single family home. We’ve been in that house for 2 years now and it’s turned out to be a lemon, and the neighborhood is pretty unfortunate with bad schools. No kids yet but obviously this decision was pretty short sighted, and I’m realizing that by the time we have a school aged kid we will more than likely want to move yet again, so we’ll probably only be in this house for 8 years and will likely lose money when we sell as we’ve had to spend so much on repairs. Are we especially stupid or have others had to buy and sell multiple times before landing on a place you can stay in for a long time?

Where are these places? Why did you buy in those places? How do you know that you will lose money when you sell the house? Nobody has a crystal ball.

[Anonymous]

Bought 3, sold 2.

[Anonymous]

Why did you buy a house somewhere with bad schools?? You wasted your historically low interest rate. Game over unless you can massively boost your income.

[Anonymous]

We purchased our th at 26, sold close to 8 years later when our first child was about to start K.

Bought our sfh and have now been here 12 years. Renovated during the pandemic and really like our neighborhood. We will probably stay at least 9 more years until our second child graduates hs.

[Anonymous]

We rented for a long time then bought our first house when we were in our early 30s and had a toddler and a newborn. When our kids were 6 and 4, my husband got a new job and we moved to a different city/state for his job, which meant we sold our first house and bought a new house. That was 2 years ago (so our kids are now 8 and 6) and we are still in that house and plan to stay in it for a long time. We plan to stay in this area at least until kids are out of high school so 12 more years. We don’t love our house (it’s ok but it’s had a lot of issues that we knew about when we bought but overlooked due to the stress of house searching out of state/with kids/during a pandemic/being on a timeline since we had to be here before my husband’s job started) but we do love the neighborhood and the schools are great. So we will only move out of this house sooner than 12 years if we find a better (and affordable) house in this same neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

One house. We’re 41.

Bought the close-in house for a proverbial dime when we were 29, and unfortunately we’re stuck because the house turned out to be in a desirable school district in a hot neighborhood and now we have school-age kids and will never be able to afford anything comparable in DC.

On the plus side our PITI is $1700. I feel for the people who want to buy now (and FWIW I recommend they rent until things cool off).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you buy a house somewhere with bad schools?? You wasted your historically low interest rate. Game over unless you can massively boost your income.

OP here. Yes, I’m well aware. Like I said, it was short sighted.

[Anonymous]

I’m 36 not sure if that is mid or late 30s. Bought two, sold one. We also started in a condo that I liked that was just too small. We bought a SFH that I don’t live in a neighborhood with good schools for too much money. Basically paid for the neighborhood. But my kid has and iep and it hasn’t been too bad with the public school so it’s been worth it.