For Owners of Homes Over 7,000 SF – Share Your Experience!

[Anonymous]

6,800 sq ft in Arlington - 5 bedrooms and 7 1/2 baths
Bought 10 years ago for 2 million, probably worth 2.5 million?
Bought with cash, no mortgage.

While it is large, we use most of the space. We have a workout room and movie room in the basement and both get a lot of use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10,450sqft

Potomac Outside. Built early 90’s. Bought & renovated by us recently. Massive in every sense and symmetrical to tone down the noise of such a beast.

We have a wine vault with tasting room, a gym, two guest suites, home offices x2, great room, formal dining, parlor, 2 main floor powder rooms and a 5 car garage. I would love to do a pool house or maybe a shop/garage at the way back one day.

Go for it. Live to excess. I don’t know the mortgage amount anymore. But it gets paid.

Th house being built on 9540 River Rd in Potomac is 40,000 square feet.

My favorite the house on end of Willowbrook drive off Democracy near Bolger Center in Potomac is 60,000 square feet. And a older couple with grown kids built if as they like to entertain.

My daughters friend who has a super big Potomac house has four master bedrooms upstairs each are 750sf. Her friends bedroom is size of a one bedroom apt. Crazy

[Anonymous]

no one has a sex dungeon in any of these mansions? really disappointing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no one has a sex dungeon in any of these mansions? really disappointing

My thoughts exactly, to all these threads. Sex dungeon, and backup sex dungeon, justify extra space. After this you can consider including a guest bedroom.

[Anonymous]

Homes in my neighborood range in size between 6K and 10K sq. ft. They have generously sized rooms and high ceilings, and many are configured for multigenerational living, allowing parents to comfortably visit for extended periods of time, or to live with the primary homeowners. In practice, that means a large guest area with separate living room and bedroom, a large walk-in closet, and a large bathroom. Secondary washer/dryers are often present, as well.

The other spaces provide for more than a single office; many homeowner couples both work from home at least some of the time. Several of the homes have rooms devoted exclusively to golf simulators, most have spaces for separate home theaters and gyms. Families with smaller children usually dedicate one or more places for playrooms.

[Anonymous]

I have a sex dungeon but my fat wife isn’t into it.

[Anonymous]

I’d love a bigger basement where my teens could host more friends. I’d also love a workout room and larger family room, larger mudroom, and larger laundry room. I imagine if we added all that on, we’d be at about 7000. And we’d use every inch of that every day.

We have a big family though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homes in my neighborood range in size between 6K and 10K sq. ft. They have generously sized rooms and high ceilings, and many are configured for multigenerational living, allowing parents to comfortably visit for extended periods of time, or to live with the primary homeowners. In practice, that means a large guest area with separate living room and bedroom, a large walk-in closet, and a large bathroom. Secondary washer/dryers are often present, as well.

The other spaces provide for more than a single office; many homeowner couples both work from home at least some of the time. Several of the homes have rooms devoted exclusively to golf simulators, most have spaces for separate home theaters and gyms. Families with smaller children usually dedicate one or more places for playrooms.

Zero people on my block of big homes, meaning 6k to 15K sf have multi generation. We are not in the hood. As crazy as it should I say 60 percent of my very long block has zero kids. Most are older couples whose kids moved out or kids come back and forth. The craziness of housing run up means people who bought as recently as 2019 paid peanuts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you fill such a house without being a hoarder?

With furniture I inherited and spouse inherited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only strivers get houses that big. It’s grotesque and shows poor taste. 2k-3k is the ideal house size

Well the bank encourage us to build the largest possible to maximize equity based on our down payment. not sure who 2k is ideal for? Market forces basically forced us to build the largest home possible and our equity does show it paid off.

You are stupid.

I live in a $12 mil home.

There is no way I would let a banker give me advice about equity. That’s ridiculous.

We paid cash.


And yes a 2500 to 3000 square foot house is perfect in my opinion. It’s big enough for most families to find their space and be together.

[Anonymous]

6000sq ft. North Arlington. Bought for $2M in 2019 with $1M down. All money from buying and selling properties since we got married. Had some great real estate luck to make that money. 2% mortgage we could pay it off but financial planner doesn’t advise. Probably worth $3m now but we’re not selling so doesn’t matter.
I thought it was ridiculous when we bought it but we wanted this neighborhood and schools. Still love the location. Was perfect for 3 teens in the pandemic. I like my large laundry room, large gym, amazing hangout in the basement, large bedrooms (especially guest room where grandparents spend a lot of time). We entertain 100+ people twice a year and we can do indoor or outdoor with ease. Not sure how I’ll feel as a soon to be empty nester but maybe that season will be short and there will be significant others and babies in 10 years and I’ll be glad to have this space.

[Anonymous]

8k sq ft, also in N Arlington. We bought it for the location, not the size. If I designed my dream house it would be a bit smaller (some of the rooms are unnecessarily big, like the primary bedroom), but still probably 6.5-7k sq ft.
We regularly have overnight guests so we have multiple guest rooms, 2 offices, workout room… the space gets used pretty fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only strivers get houses that big. It’s grotesque and shows poor taste. 2k-3k is the ideal house size

Well the bank encourage us to build the largest possible to maximize equity based on our down payment. not sure who 2k is ideal for? Market forces basically forced us to build the largest home possible and our equity does show it paid off.

You are stupid.

I live in a $12 mil home.

There is no way I would let a banker give me advice about equity. That’s ridiculous.

We paid cash.


And yes a 2500 to 3000 square foot house is perfect in my opinion. It’s big enough for most families to find their space and be together.

You spent 12M on a 3K square foot home?

[Anonymous]

Heck no. But I will say, it is a money pit that requires a full time person to manage the issues. Then again, it is gorgeous and in a great location and people visit a lot. So I love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ours is about 7,500. We owe about $1.25m on it, and it is worth about $2.5m. As far as it being a "striver" house, it is the right size house for our current needs as far as spaces for everyone to spread out, and ability to host guests. We had a much smaller house before we built this one and it wasn't comfortable. It's intentionally not showy (no great room, relatively closed floor plan, mid-market appliances, etc.). When we were first drawing up plans, we told the architect we wanted it to be "bigger on the inside than the outside." Obviously, we can't hide a large house but the goal was never to have a show-off house, just a place where we could live comfortably and welcome friends and family.

So you need 7500 sq to live comfortably 🤣