Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the insight, everyone! I think we'll just go for the 2BR home and see where things go. We can afford the bigger house but would rather invest our money elsewhere for a greater return given that the other rooms won't be utilized and dealing with renters seems like a hassle.

Again you don't get it. Buying a 2 bedroom might cost you more in the log run. For example, if you buy a 500k 2 bedroom condo and sell in five years you'll be spending at least 40k to sell (realtor and taxes). You would have been better off spending 40k more over the course of five years in interest and principle on a bigger house. You wouldn't have to move and you'd have more flexibility in terms of space.

OP here. Thanks for the insight, everyone! I think we'll just go for the 2BR home and see where things go. We can afford the bigger house but would rather invest our money elsewhere for a greater return given that the other rooms won't be utilized and dealing with renters seems like a hassle.

Renting rooms in your house is the height of insanity (and, depending on state law, is probably illegal). And do you want strangers living with you? If you can't afford to buy a larger house, buy a smaller one. How is this even a serious question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would rather rent a basement and not random rooms.

Definitely. Get a house with a separate basement apartment if you can, but don't plan on roommates in the main part of your home. No way.

Plus you have to figure that roommates are going to be in their 20s most likely, which will get annoying as you and your husband "nest."

Previous poster was so right: once you have kids either your expenses skyrocket (daycare/nanny, bigger car, extra plane tickets) or your income goes down if one of you stays at home or goes part-time.

if you buy in DC in a place that offers free pre-K starting at age 3, that can save you $$ vs. places in the burbs where free school doesn't start until K.

Anonymous wrote:I would rather rent a basement and not random rooms.

Definitely. Get a house with a separate basement apartment if you can, but don't plan on roommates in the main part of your home. No way.

Plus you have to figure that roommates are going to be in their 20s most likely, which will get annoying as you and your husband "nest."

Previous poster was so right: once you have kids either your expenses skyrocket (daycare/nanny, bigger car, extra plane tickets) or your income goes down if one of you stays at home or goes part-time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the responses. I think we'll need to think this through more. Hate the idea of eating transactions costs, empty space just sitting around, or continuing to rent when we could be buying. Maybe we will aim for the 2BR and just squeeze while the kids are young.

Or you could get a 3 br...or a different neighborhood... There is a lot of ground btw your dream 4-5br house and a 2br condo.

Yea but the 3BR is also pretty much wasted space (aka $$$ we could be investing better otherwise) since the most we'd really utilize before kids is 2BR, and if we are going to have empty space or roommates we might as well aim for the house we can stay in for the long term so we don't have to deal with selling.

-OP

the 3rd bedroom gives you the opportunity to stay their longer when you have kids. with a 3rd bedroom you could be there for 10 years+ even though it might end up feeling a little tight after a while.

you could consider getting a small row house with a separate rental unit in the basement. You could rent out the basement for a while, then repurpose the basement into a family room/guest room area when you have kids.

It works for some people obviously and maybe it will for you but as others have said life has a way of not going as planned.
You may find it is 10 years before you really need such a big house. We lived in a starter home with 3 kids for over 10 yrs mostly because it was all we could afford.
It felt fine when the kids were small because young kids want to be around their parents and so you only need a few rooms. We recently moved to a much bigger house and it is great
now because our kids are teenagers and pre-teenagers. Our starter house started feeling really small once our oldest hit 10yrs.

We stretched to get into a DC rowhouse and skipped the condo ten years ago. 2 kids later looks like we'll be here at least another 10. Decent chance our first home is our forever home.

Maybe downsize to a condo at some point after kids are out of the house.

Hi OP, something to keep in mind is that you won't always have tenants. I used to rent a room out in my home in my early 30s. You mention you'd "slowly kick tenants out" when you had kids, etc., but you can't guarantee you'll find a series of long-term renters.

For me, It was more of a situation of people moving in and out vs me "kicking tenants out". The type of people who rent a room in a home aren't looking for long-term situation. I had one roommate for about a year, one for maybe 2-3 months, one for maybe 4-5 months. Eventfully I got tired of turning the room over and quit trying to make extra money that way.

OP, we have a house with 5 bedrooms. We have one child, one on the way. We have been here for 3 years: bedroom for us, bedroom for kid, bedroom turned into home office, 2 guest rooms. The guest rooms have been mostly unused space except around the holidays, when we have friends in town, etc. While they are unused more than not, it's nice to have a guest room that is separate from your office, and to have a guest room vs "guest sofa".

While some may think that 3 years is a long time to have 2 rooms basically sit empty, the time has flown by. Now, we have baby #2 coming and it's nice to know that we can have our bedroom, 2 kid bedrooms, a home office, and still have a guest room. We won't be squished. Even if I were pregnant with twins, we would have enough room. However, we are in our late 30s and both DH and I owned houses before this one. We were able to use equity from his house to pay a good down payment. We couldn't have done this when we were first starting out. I had a "guest sofa" for many years, and my laptop on my bed was my "home office".

Our basement, where one of the guest rooms is, also has living area/bathroom and could be a standalone unit, if we needed the money we *could* rent it out. But we don't really want to do that with our family home. Maybe further down the road we will decide to go for Au Pair route and it will be an ideal setup. However for now it's nice for guests to have their own space when they visit. I mean, if something happened to my husband, I had to quit working, or we otherwise needed the money, it would be easy to rent out. But this is our family home, not a boarding house.

We went from an apartment (2 bedrm, 2 bath) to a SFH with a yard, 2 car garage, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms etc. We knew that we were not the kind of people who liked to move from place to place and we were also planning our first baby. It worked for us. We saved aggressively for a year to make the down payment though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you aren't always going to be able to get everything you want out of life. Financially there is always going to be an opportunity cost. Learn this lesson now.

Op's obsession with having an extra bedroom is bizarre. What if there is an extra closet...going to start storing canned goods and water for Mormons?

Op when you drive to work do you make sure and work as an uber driver? What if you have an empty seat?

The two of you don't seem to fully understand the concept of opportunity cost. Please stop prattling.

Pp here. There are also strict laws regarding a c of o, business license, etc. You can't just rent out a room in the side.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you afford it? That's the reason people get a "starter home" usually.

OP here. We can afford it if we generate rental income with the extra bedrooms and think of it as an investment property, otherwise it seems a waste of money and space? In essence we'd turn the home into a group home until we have kids, then gently kick out the tenants over time. Wondering if anyone has done this and if it is a good idea.

If you mean in DC, be careful about assuming you can kick out tenants over time. The city has some crazy laws to protect tenants, and if they want to stay, it's near impossible to out them regardless of your lease. I'd be careful.

Anonymous wrote:OP, you aren't always going to be able to get everything you want out of life. Financially there is always going to be an opportunity cost. Learn this lesson now.

Op's obsession with having an extra bedroom is bizarre. What if there is an extra closet...going to start storing canned goods and water for Mormons?

Op when you drive to work do you make sure and work as an uber driver? What if you have an empty seat?