How do people "upgrade" houses?

[Anonymous]

Definitely get out of academe and start applying for other positions, even in middle age.

Townhouses are fine here, though. Lots of people live in them for decades.

I really don't think now is the time to "upgrade" to a sfh OP. There will be an election in two years, dc real estate prices are really high, and there isn't much on the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would 1) not be embarrassed and 2) go all in on making the townhouse work for you. So identify the bike storage solution that really works well (cool covered shed? streamlined hanging system?) even if it costs more than you would normally spend and really make your backyard space a haven. I lived in city apartments/townhouses with tiny backyards and I loved to make them really gorgeous and do all the tricks to create a deeper sense of space and retreat (there's so many on-line inspiring resources for this) with a great seating area. In fact when we moved to our first SFH I kind of missed all the cool things you can do with a more contained smaller backyard. It's way too expensive to do that kind of dense, lush landscaping in a traditional suburban yard.

Thanks. OP here, I do spend time on Pinterest and Reddit looking into stuff like this - there are some great small space things, and since grass won't even grow in the shadier third of our yard, we need to do some landscaping. But the two issues are time- we need to do stuff like remove a crumbling sidewalk, which takes equipment and someone else to watch the kids - and trying to find a plan that would not be totally incompatible with small kids playing in said yard. I don't want to constantly be saying stuff like "don't step on the plants!" And "don't kick the ball over there!" It's so small they barely play in it as is. Very open to ideas!

I planted some hostas and an azalea in an existing bed, and got a couple planters for greenery on the sidewalk out front, so that's my gardening accomplishment for this season. Focusing on container gardening is more manageable right now. Doing little things to improve it does help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adjust your worldview. Your embarrassment with regard to your townhouse is self-imposed, not anything objectively shared on your behalf by anyone.

The key to financial success is to live below your means, which you may be doing now. if you upgrade your lifestyle with a more expensive home, will you still be living below your means, or will you be exchanging more working years before retirement for the bigger house?

As note earlier, you may be able to have a bigger home in a different location while keeping your expenses close to what they are now, but that requires flexibility on your part with regard to where you live geographically in return for the bigger house.

Everything is a trade-off, but it may be neither wise nor prudent to trade a bigger home for a higher level of expenses if your income can't comfortably support the higher outflow.

100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much house do you feel you can afford OP?

About $100k more than ours costs - which was the price differential of a single family home in 2020, and is far less now. We don't have a ton of equity yet.

Typically you want to stay in a home 5-10 years. It sounds like you may have been in yours about 2?
Certainly leave if you hate it - life is too short - but in that case you will take a hit. Financially you should stay longer. Save up your cash for a down payment and let your equity grow.

OP here - I am committed to staying 5 years, not sure I will make it 10 (oldest will be 16, wouldn't have much time to make memories in another house). My worry is that even then, house prices have gone so wild that the only way to do that even with more equity is by increasing salary way more than is possible in our fields. I am a fed and will certainly keep looking for promotional opportunities, but tenure for my spouse looks like a $10k raise, and the next GS level would be similar for me. Do people only do this if they're actually doubling income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would 1) not be embarrassed and 2) go all in on making the townhouse work for you. So identify the bike storage solution that really works well (cool covered shed? streamlined hanging system?) even if it costs more than you would normally spend and really make your backyard space a haven. I lived in city apartments/townhouses with tiny backyards and I loved to make them really gorgeous and do all the tricks to create a deeper sense of space and retreat (there's so many on-line inspiring resources for this) with a great seating area. In fact when we moved to our first SFH I kind of missed all the cool things you can do with a more contained smaller backyard. It's way too expensive to do that kind of dense, lush landscaping in a traditional suburban yard.

Thanks. OP here, I do spend time on Pinterest and Reddit looking into stuff like this - there are some great small space things, and since grass won't even grow in the shadier third of our yard, we need to do some landscaping. But the two issues are time- we need to do stuff like remove a crumbling sidewalk, which takes equipment and someone else to watch the kids - and trying to find a plan that would not be totally incompatible with small kids playing in said yard. I don't want to constantly be saying stuff like "don't step on the plants!" And "don't kick the ball over there!" It's so small they barely play in it as is. Very open to ideas!

I planted some hostas and an azalea in an existing bed, and got a couple planters for greenery on the sidewalk out front, so that's my gardening accomplishment for this season. Focusing on container gardening is more manageable right now. Doing little things to improve it does help.

Ok-I love landscaping ideas!
Your initial efforts sound great! Containers and raised beds are key to a lovely small backyard since creating different heights creates a deeper sense of space. Put containers and beds around the sitting area (if you have one!--if not, find a way to make one even if it's just a couple chairs on the lawn) in layers (lower in the front, taller behind). Then just plant along the sides of your fence in a very thin bed and put tall grasses of different heights/shades of green that don't mind being kicked or trampled or narrow containers (e.g. a plant box with a lattice with vining flowers). In the shady back third, some taller shade loving evergreen bushes in alternating layers might create a sense of depth/privacy--and put some mulch paths around those for the kids to play on instead of lawn in that part--my kids loved hidden spots so bushes and mulch were more inviting than lawn but your kids may be different. You can often get free mulch from tree-cutting companies. In our city yard we just had mulch and pea gravel and pavers and a children's garden (e.g. small raised bed that the kids planted veg and flowers in)--no lawn. That way we didn't have to mow. The kids played ball in the mulch and gravel and I didn't fuss if it got spread around a bit--it looked fine. But I've also seen adorable small yards with a small patch of lawn and it's just so charming too. Our plants that couldn't be trampled were in containers or raised beds so kids had free rein of the yard. There are plastic containers that look like ceramic so you could put those where kids are more likely to play if you're worried about them--they make sense for the bigger "back layer" containers anyway because they are otherwise too heavy to easily carry and very expensive if you bought ceramic.
We also just planted herbs in containers outside and would tell the kids to go grab herbs for cooking or cut flowers for the table regularly--that got them outside more just because they regularly had to notice which herbs were which or which flowers to cut plus their own garden. The key thing is to have a hose that you can easily reach and water any containers.
Also, I found mini water feature like a tiny pond or container kit water fountains add way more value than you would ever expect. The water noise is calming and it's just sort of hypnotic and draws your eyes in. They are pretty inexpensive and there are a million diys for them on line. I'm not mechanically inclined at all and I was able to follow the kit and make it.

No need to do it all at once, just kind of have a general plan that you let evolve and chip away at and soon you'll love your place so much! It's actually nice to do it slowly over time because it will organically work better and you keep getting that reward of it looking a little better. The crumbling sidewalk though--I would just bite the bullet and hire someone to get rid of it if you can. It may cost less than you think and it will be done. Put your sweat equity in the more lovely, fun aspects so it's rewarding (we're a gov/academic family too so not rolling in it either so I get the impulse to just do it all yourself). Nice outdoor landscaping sells townhouses too--so it will pay off if you do end up moving in the long run so you can think of some of this as an investment rather than just an expense.

Okay--that was fun to play with some imaginary landscape where I don't have to do the work! Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would 1) not be embarrassed and 2) go all in on making the townhouse work for you. So identify the bike storage solution that really works well (cool covered shed? streamlined hanging system?) even if it costs more than you would normally spend and really make your backyard space a haven. I lived in city apartments/townhouses with tiny backyards and I loved to make them really gorgeous and do all the tricks to create a deeper sense of space and retreat (there's so many on-line inspiring resources for this) with a great seating area. In fact when we moved to our first SFH I kind of missed all the cool things you can do with a more contained smaller backyard. It's way too expensive to do that kind of dense, lush landscaping in a traditional suburban yard.

Thanks. OP here, I do spend time on Pinterest and Reddit looking into stuff like this - there are some great small space things, and since grass won't even grow in the shadier third of our yard, we need to do some landscaping. But the two issues are time- we need to do stuff like remove a crumbling sidewalk, which takes equipment and someone else to watch the kids - and trying to find a plan that would not be totally incompatible with small kids playing in said yard. I don't want to constantly be saying stuff like "don't step on the plants!" And "don't kick the ball over there!" It's so small they barely play in it as is. Very open to ideas!

I planted some hostas and an azalea in an existing bed, and got a couple planters for greenery on the sidewalk out front, so that's my gardening accomplishment for this season. Focusing on container gardening is more manageable right now. Doing little things to improve it does help.

Ok-I love landscaping ideas!
Your initial efforts sound great! Containers and raised beds are key to a lovely small backyard since creating different heights creates a deeper sense of space. Put containers and beds around the sitting area (if you have one!--if not, find a way to make one even if it's just a couple chairs on the lawn) in layers (lower in the front, taller behind). Then just plant along the sides of your fence in a very thin bed and put tall grasses of different heights/shades of green that don't mind being kicked or trampled or narrow containers (e.g. a plant box with a lattice with vining flowers). In the shady back third, some taller shade loving evergreen bushes in alternating layers might create a sense of depth/privacy--and put some mulch paths around those for the kids to play on instead of lawn in that part--my kids loved hidden spots so bushes and mulch were more inviting than lawn but your kids may be different. You can often get free mulch from tree-cutting companies. In our city yard we just had mulch and pea gravel and pavers and a children's garden (e.g. small raised bed that the kids planted veg and flowers in)--no lawn. That way we didn't have to mow. The kids played ball in the mulch and gravel and I didn't fuss if it got spread around a bit--it looked fine. But I've also seen adorable small yards with a small patch of lawn and it's just so charming too. Our plants that couldn't be trampled were in containers or raised beds so kids had free rein of the yard. There are plastic containers that look like ceramic so you could put those where kids are more likely to play if you're worried about them--they make sense for the bigger "back layer" containers anyway because they are otherwise too heavy to easily carry and very expensive if you bought ceramic.
We also just planted herbs in containers outside and would tell the kids to go grab herbs for cooking or cut flowers for the table regularly--that got them outside more just because they regularly had to notice which herbs were which or which flowers to cut plus their own garden. The key thing is to have a hose that you can easily reach and water any containers.
Also, I found mini water feature like a tiny pond or container kit water fountains add way more value than you would ever expect. The water noise is calming and it's just sort of hypnotic and draws your eyes in. They are pretty inexpensive and there are a million diys for them on line. I'm not mechanically inclined at all and I was able to follow the kit and make it.

No need to do it all at once, just kind of have a general plan that you let evolve and chip away at and soon you'll love your place so much! It's actually nice to do it slowly over time because it will organically work better and you keep getting that reward of it looking a little better. The crumbling sidewalk though--I would just bite the bullet and hire someone to get rid of it if you can. It may cost less than you think and it will be done. Put your sweat equity in the more lovely, fun aspects so it's rewarding (we're a gov/academic family too so not rolling in it either so I get the impulse to just do it all yourself). Nice outdoor landscaping sells townhouses too--so it will pay off if you do end up moving in the long run so you can think of some of this as an investment rather than just an expense.

Okay--that was fun to play with some imaginary landscape where I don't have to do the work! Good luck!

Thanks PP - lots of good advice and food for thought here! Our yard is REALLY tiny so we're limited in space for paths etc but the points about different heights and things to hide behind are worth thinking about. We do have a small paver patio and I'm trying to figure out how to hang string lights.

I appreciate the responses in this thread. While I'd love to figure out how to double my income and move, the "make it nice" responses were the pep talk I needed right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We bought our small starter home 20+ years ago and we are still here. There are times I wish we had a larger home- mostly when entertaining or when kids have friends over. That said, the house has served us well and while we could have bought more home, as most know homes are expensive. They’re expensive not just to buy, but to maintain. More house = more maintenance and larger tax bill.

+1 We've come to realize this about our starter home too. We are so much wealthier than we would be if we traded up. Yes homes appreciate, but we were able to invest surplus in our investment accounts. If we had the transaction costs of buying, selling, moving, refurnishing and then the general increased costs of owning a larger more expensive home we would be far worse off.

Another +1. Just put a gorgeous 50-year roof on (though it will last longer than us!) and are painting and landscaping. It feels like a new home!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much house do you feel you can afford OP?

About $100k more than ours costs - which was the price differential of a single family home in 2020, and is far less now. We don't have a ton of equity yet.

Typically you want to stay in a home 5-10 years. It sounds like you may have been in yours about 2?
Certainly leave if you hate it - life is too short - but in that case you will take a hit. Financially you should stay longer. Save up your cash for a down payment and let your equity grow.

OP here - I am committed to staying 5 years, not sure I will make it 10 (oldest will be 16, wouldn't have much time to make memories in another house). My worry is that even then, house prices have gone so wild that the only way to do that even with more equity is by increasing salary way more than is possible in our fields. I am a fed and will certainly keep looking for promotional opportunities, but tenure for my spouse looks like a $10k raise, and the next GS level would be similar for me. Do people only do this if they're actually doubling income?

There are lots of ways to make memories besides a house. Would you instead to take your kids to visit some international destinations? Get a vacation house/condo? Buy a boat? Take sailing lessons? Rent a cabin somewhere interesting for the summer?

When push comes to shove, would you choose a bigger house or fully fund college? Save extra towards his grad school? Get him a car? Pay for a fancy camp? Afford a semester abroad? Save towards your retirement travel?

Just enjoy your townhouse. Save for the future and don't obsessed over 5+ years in the future.

[Anonymous]

Here's my hot tip. You are in the govt. Everyone in the govt wants to live in the DC area, but there are tons of govt positions in places like Tampa or in Texas, or Georgia.

So apply for a job outside the DC area. They tend to be less competitive, so if you keep applying, you'll get one. The govt will pay for your move, pay for the real estate sale fees and then the closing fees for the new house.

If you are SES, they base the raise on your current location, not the destination one. So you get a DC raise and generally speaking go to a lower COL area. If youre GS it isnt as good of a deal bc you get a lower salary. But do a tax comparison, and you often come out on top bc of lower state taxes and local taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my hot tip. You are in the govt. Everyone in the govt wants to live in the DC area, but there are tons of govt positions in places like Tampa or in Texas, or Georgia.

So apply for a job outside the DC area. They tend to be less competitive, so if you keep applying, you'll get one. The govt will pay for your move, pay for the real estate sale fees and then the closing fees for the new house.

If you are SES, they base the raise on your current location, not the destination one. So you get a DC raise and generally speaking go to a lower COL area. If youre GS it isnt as good of a deal bc you get a lower salary. But do a tax comparison, and you often come out on top bc of lower state taxes and local taxes.

But the spouse is in academia on the tenure track. Depending on field, tenure track jobs are like golden tickets--you are lucky to get one, you rarely have choice about where.

[Anonymous]

We bought our starter home 20 years ago at the height of the bubble, and then our mortgage went underwater for 10 years. It made us think really differently about real estate. We have stayed in that tiny house and raised our son here - he is 16 now and we will stay at least until he is well into college, probably beyond.

Having a lower mortgage than we could afford has given us so much freedom. We ended up sending the kid to private school, and because our neighborhood is working class the other houses and families are not keeping up with any fancy Joneses.

We do have friends over! Some of them live in multi-million dollar homes. I don’t enjoy visiting small homes less, so I won’t think less of my friends by assuming they would.

I agree with the gardener above - you can make a lovely back yard. My town’s garden tour had a town home on it this year, and everything was done with reclaimed materials. It was artsy and lovely and cozy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my hot tip. You are in the govt. Everyone in the govt wants to live in the DC area, but there are tons of govt positions in places like Tampa or in Texas, or Georgia.

So apply for a job outside the DC area. They tend to be less competitive, so if you keep applying, you'll get one. The govt will pay for your move, pay for the real estate sale fees and then the closing fees for the new house.

If you are SES, they base the raise on your current location, not the destination one. So you get a DC raise and generally speaking go to a lower COL area. If youre GS it isnt as good of a deal bc you get a lower salary. But do a tax comparison, and you often come out on top bc of lower state taxes and local taxes.

But the spouse is in academia on the tenure track. Depending on field, tenure track jobs are like golden tickets--you are lucky to get one, you rarely have choice about where.

OP here. This is very true. It took us six years to find jobs in the same region (still 50 miles apart, which is why I can't move out any further!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would 1) not be embarrassed and 2) go all in on making the townhouse work for you. So identify the bike storage solution that really works well (cool covered shed? streamlined hanging system?) even if it costs more than you would normally spend and really make your backyard space a haven. I lived in city apartments/townhouses with tiny backyards and I loved to make them really gorgeous and do all the tricks to create a deeper sense of space and retreat (there's so many on-line inspiring resources for this) with a great seating area. In fact when we moved to our first SFH I kind of missed all the cool things you can do with a more contained smaller backyard. It's way too expensive to do that kind of dense, lush landscaping in a traditional suburban yard.

Thanks. OP here, I do spend time on Pinterest and Reddit looking into stuff like this - there are some great small space things, and since grass won't even grow in the shadier third of our yard, we need to do some landscaping. But the two issues are time- we need to do stuff like remove a crumbling sidewalk, which takes equipment and someone else to watch the kids - and trying to find a plan that would not be totally incompatible with small kids playing in said yard. I don't want to constantly be saying stuff like "don't step on the plants!" And "don't kick the ball over there!" It's so small they barely play in it as is. Very open to ideas!

I planted some hostas and an azalea in an existing bed, and got a couple planters for greenery on the sidewalk out front, so that's my gardening accomplishment for this season. Focusing on container gardening is more manageable right now. Doing little things to improve it does help.

Ok-I love landscaping ideas!
Your initial efforts sound great! Containers and raised beds are key to a lovely small backyard since creating different heights creates a deeper sense of space. Put containers and beds around the sitting area (if you have one!--if not, find a way to make one even if it's just a couple chairs on the lawn) in layers (lower in the front, taller behind). Then just plant along the sides of your fence in a very thin bed and put tall grasses of different heights/shades of green that don't mind being kicked or trampled or narrow containers (e.g. a plant box with a lattice with vining flowers). In the shady back third, some taller shade loving evergreen bushes in alternating layers might create a sense of depth/privacy--and put some mulch paths around those for the kids to play on instead of lawn in that part--my kids loved hidden spots so bushes and mulch were more inviting than lawn but your kids may be different. You can often get free mulch from tree-cutting companies. In our city yard we just had mulch and pea gravel and pavers and a children's garden (e.g. small raised bed that the kids planted veg and flowers in)--no lawn. That way we didn't have to mow. The kids played ball in the mulch and gravel and I didn't fuss if it got spread around a bit--it looked fine. But I've also seen adorable small yards with a small patch of lawn and it's just so charming too. Our plants that couldn't be trampled were in containers or raised beds so kids had free rein of the yard. There are plastic containers that look like ceramic so you could put those where kids are more likely to play if you're worried about them--they make sense for the bigger "back layer" containers anyway because they are otherwise too heavy to easily carry and very expensive if you bought ceramic.
We also just planted herbs in containers outside and would tell the kids to go grab herbs for cooking or cut flowers for the table regularly--that got them outside more just because they regularly had to notice which herbs were which or which flowers to cut plus their own garden. The key thing is to have a hose that you can easily reach and water any containers.
Also, I found mini water feature like a tiny pond or container kit water fountains add way more value than you would ever expect. The water noise is calming and it's just sort of hypnotic and draws your eyes in. They are pretty inexpensive and there are a million diys for them on line. I'm not mechanically inclined at all and I was able to follow the kit and make it.

No need to do it all at once, just kind of have a general plan that you let evolve and chip away at and soon you'll love your place so much! It's actually nice to do it slowly over time because it will organically work better and you keep getting that reward of it looking a little better. The crumbling sidewalk though--I would just bite the bullet and hire someone to get rid of it if you can. It may cost less than you think and it will be done. Put your sweat equity in the more lovely, fun aspects so it's rewarding (we're a gov/academic family too so not rolling in it either so I get the impulse to just do it all yourself). Nice outdoor landscaping sells townhouses too--so it will pay off if you do end up moving in the long run so you can think of some of this as an investment rather than just an expense.

Okay--that was fun to play with some imaginary landscape where I don't have to do the work! Good luck!

Thanks PP - lots of good advice and food for thought here! Our yard is REALLY tiny so we're limited in space for paths etc but the points about different heights and things to hide behind are worth thinking about. We do have a small paver patio and I'm trying to figure out how to hang string lights.

I appreciate the responses in this thread. While I'd love to figure out how to double my income and move, the "make it nice" responses were the pep talk I needed right now.

We had some wooden raised box containers in the corners of our patio and just put a thin (1x2) post at the back of the box with hook on it and strung lights that way. Creates a sense of closed in space.

[Anonymous]

If it makes you feel any better, 90% of people don't use their backyards at all. I moved out of Chevy chase years ago and promised myself I would never deal with a backyard again. I regularly walk about 3 miles around my nearby neighborhoods with SFH and have never seen or heard anyone in a yard. What you do see is the occasionally teenager playing basketball in a driveway. It seems kids are now all in tutoring, sports, and other after school activities. No time for yard play

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my hot tip. You are in the govt. Everyone in the govt wants to live in the DC area, but there are tons of govt positions in places like Tampa or in Texas, or Georgia.

So apply for a job outside the DC area. They tend to be less competitive, so if you keep applying, you'll get one. The govt will pay for your move, pay for the real estate sale fees and then the closing fees for the new house.

If you are SES, they base the raise on your current location, not the destination one. So you get a DC raise and generally speaking go to a lower COL area. If youre GS it isnt as good of a deal bc you get a lower salary. But do a tax comparison, and you often come out on top bc of lower state taxes and local taxes.

But the spouse is in academia on the tenure track. Depending on field, tenure track jobs are like golden tickets--you are lucky to get one, you rarely have choice about where.

OP here. This is very true. It took us six years to find jobs in the same region (still 50 miles apart, which is why I can't move out any further!).

It's not a "golden ticket" if your jobs are 50 miles apart and the job in academe doesn't make much money. It's great if it's what you really enjoy doing but, at least in my case, tenure didn't make up for the poor salary.