Poll: Homeowners: do you expect to stop moving?

In My Humble Opinion
41
  1. USA, age 41
  2. Well, I own around half and the bank owns around half at this point.
  3. N/A
  4. Pretty much. We live in faculty housing and have tenure. No reason to leave or expect to need to.
  5. N/A
42
  1. American, U.S., 45 years old
  2. Own a home (have owned the same home since 1996)
  3. n/a
  4. We have no plans to move from this home at this time, but I confess I’ll be surprised if we stay here for the next 30 years.
  5. n/a
43
  1. Nationality, country of residence and age, please.

US, Canada dual, live in Canada, 73

  1. Do you currently own a home?

Yes

  1. If not, do you expect to buy?

NA

  1. If you do own, do you expect your current home to be where you stay until they drag you out? (Where “drag you out” includes death, serious illness, old age and having to move for work reasons when you’d much rather not).

My wife and I have lived here for 38 years and I hope to leave feet first. But it is possible that we would move to assisted living quarters. Or simply decide to get a small condo.

  1. If you think of your current owned home as temporary, do you expect to get a permanent home at some point?

NA

44

American, 51, I own, and expect to remain until they drag me out. I just moved four months ago and have no desire to do so again.

45
  1. US, 41.
  2. Yes.
  3. N/A
  4. Maybe. The house is excellent and the location is great, but I can imagine moving because the house may be too big after the kids go off to college. Or maybe moving to be closer to my children’s families when they have children. Who knows?
  5. N/A - I think of my home as permanent.
46
  1. American, US, 29
  2. No
  3. It wouldn’t surprise me if I someday buy, but I have no immediate plans to do so, and my long-term plans don’t necessarily require it, either.
  4. N/A
  5. Not really. So far, I’ve moved every few years as my situation and preferences changed. I think of housing as a consumption good, not as something I desire to have forever.
47
  1. American, USA and 40
  2. Yes
  3. N/A
  4. I’ve been here 13 years, expect to stay at least another five-ten years. Will definitely move at or before retirement.
  5. I don’t think of it as temporary, even though I have plans to retire elsewhere.
48
  1. American, USA (Calif.), 47
  2. No
  3. Hell, no.
  4. I used to own a house, so I’m answering this one, too: I bought with the intention of getting a place much closer in to the City when finances permitted, though I’m not sure this would have happened.
  5. It was my plan to eventually own, free and clear, a house to retire in. When/if rendered unable to live independently, selling it would have funded life in a nice retirement village with limited care available. Now, I’m pretty much planning to blow my brains out when I can’t work any more.
49
  1. American, USA (NC), 58
  2. Yes
  3. n/a
  4. They’ll have to carry me out. Of course, this is what my wife and I always said about our house back in Chicago, but after she died I couldn’t stay there for various reasons, so I retired, sold the house, and moved here.
  5. n/a
50
  1. USA, USA, 57
  2. Yes. Two of them.
  3. N/A
  4. Current ‘residence’ in a condo for about 4 more years. THEN–life starts when I retire and move to my cabin up north and never look back. That’s the place where they’ll find my rotten, stinking corpse–hopefully many years in the future…
  5. See above.
51
  1. American, US, early 50’s.
  2. We own a home
  3. N/A
  4. We very much expect to move again - this house is great while we have kids at home (which is why we bought it) but will be way too much for us once the nest is empty. Also, we intend to buy half the house next time, and put the remaining equity from this place into the retirement fund.
  5. I don’t ever think of them as “permanent” - only “next”. I’ve lived at 22 addresses in my life. The last two have been much more long-term, since we decided to raise a family. Our intent is that the next one will be the last one before we toddle off to assisted living, but reality has a funny way of intervening.
52

American, USA, 45

Yes

N/A

No

With luck, I will only move once more when I retire to someplace warmer and cheaper.

53
  1. American, US, 61
  2. Yes, same home for 21 years.
  3. n/a
  4. Will stay until we decide on a retirement location.
  5. n/a

Blessed with a stable job for most of the last 20 years, never saw any investment logic in ‘stepping’ up. Have also owned the same car for 19 years.

54
  1. American, USA, mid-thirties.
  2. Currently own.
  3. NA
  4. Depends on if the market ever recovers! Tried to move a year ago, but couldn’t. We’ll be underwater and unsellable for at least a decade at the current rate.
  5. Yes, though I don’t know what form/location that will take. Currently like the idea of renting a nice apt. in my current town (which would give us better access to city services, etc.) and building a home on some land we own on the other side of the country (for extended stays several times a year; our family is all over there).
55

  1. Nationality, country of residence and age, please.
    Nationality? I mean, my parents are immigrants. American, almost 24.

  2. Do you currently own a home?
    Nope

  3. If not, do you expect to buy?
    Yep. Soonest would be at 27 with a generous gift of a downpayment from my parents. I was offered a wedding or a downpayment; I chose the latter. If I’m not comfortable buying at that point (as in, added responsibility) I’d wait till 30 or 32. But I’m also scared that if we wait, home prices will go up. My city’s been on enough “most desireable places to live” lists that I’m starting to get antsy. One previously working class neighborhood that used to have 30-60k row houses now routinely sell for 120k to gentrifying DINKS.

  4. If you do own, do you expect your current home to be where you stay until they drag you out?

Hell no. It’ll be a townhome or row house. Definitely a starter home, 3/2.

  1. If you think of your current owned home as temporary, do you expect to get a permanent home at some point?

Permanent home meaning permanent dwelling? I hope to rent a home (up from an apartment) this summer for 3 years, then buy in 3-6 years from now. Stay in the first owned home for 5-7 years, stay in the second home with family for 15-20ish years, then downsize immediately once the kids are gone to a condo to a 2-3 bedroom place. If we don’t have kids I could see staying in the second home till older age when we want to travel. It’s what I’ve seen my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles do successfully. Never have more space than you need, it’s a giant waste of money. Also don’t downsize super drastically from a 5 bedroom to a 1 bedroom loft; you want to have a room for your kids to come home and be comfortable during college.

The concept of staying in one house for 30+ years makes no sense. Your needs, family size and your income change drastically. Even if you don’t have kids, you likely will grow out of your starter home. I know plenty of stupid people whose kids have graduated who still live in the same 5-6 bedroom house. Waste of money. The more space you have, the more you can fill it with your shit and the longer it takes to clean. Women in particular want to have a large nest.

56
  1. American living in Colorado, 27 years old.
  2. Yes
  3. N/A
  4. Not a chance my home is an 1800 sqft townhome if I even stay at the same job for more then 3 I’m probably going to find a home on some land. I’m also looking to take a job out of the state shortly.
  5. I think I’ll have a permeant home eventually but probably not until I down size my home in old age. I figue I’ll buy at least 2 more homes between now and then.
57

1)Nationality, country of residence and age, please.
US American, Colorado Mountains. Just turned 50.

  1. Do you currently own a home?
    Yep. Same place for nearly 20 years.

  2. If not, do you expect to buy?
    N/A

  3. If you do own, do you expect your current home to be where you stay until they drag you out?
    I expect to be here until we get too old to handle the snow/elevation. It will be a sad, sad day when we move. We love our home.

  4. If you think of your current owned home as temporary, do you expect to get a permanent home at some point?
    N/A

58
  1. Nationality, country of residence and age, please.

American, United States (Ohio), 24

  1. Do you currently own a home?

Yes, we bought a home over a year ago.

  1. If not, do you expect to buy?

N/A

  1. If you do own, do you expect your current home to be where you stay until they drag you out? (Where “drag you out” includes death, serious illness, old age and having to move for work reasons when you’d much rather not).

No, but mostly due to job-related things and the area we live in. It is the area with the highest number of poverty and least development, but it is where we grew up and we both have okay jobs here. We are also both graduate students though and may move on to bigger things after we finish and are more career oriented.

  1. If you think of your current owned home as temporary, do you expect to get a permanent home at some point?

Eventually, yes. This was sort of our “starter home” - we are planning on having another kid and once both our son and the new child are older (say, 10 or so) this house will be much too small, and it isn’t possible to add on without losing resale value because of where we are and the situation we are in (that sounds weird, but our neighbors added on, can’t sell their house because all over this street are 900-1200 sq ft homes and theirs is at 15-1600 sq ft and priced higher.)

59

I guess that’s another difference in mindset/culture/location which affects the issue: in Spain a 90m[sup]2[/sup] 3/2 is very much a permanent house. I knew a family (well, two married couples and their children, where one of the couples were the live-in servants of the other ones) of 4 adults and 13 children who lived in a 7B (I don’t know how many bathrooms), and the 7th bedroom was the guest bedroom/the father’s office. These were rich people and they had bedrooms shared by 3 and 4 children (several of which were in college).

I’m noticing a distinct lack of non-US answers, is everybody on vacation? Yooohooo! waves

60

Nava, that’s definitely true. Of all my friends in high school and college, the only one who shared a bedroom growing up was dirt poor. Even lower-middle income families and working class ones I knew with kids had their own bedroom, the only difference was that they rented (or inherited) their home. And most middle-income families had a “guest” room or an “office”, which was a bedroom.

But yes :smiley: everyone is on vacation! At least from work, when most doping gets done :wink: