San Francisco Bay Area (San Jose), 2 people + cats
Minimum square footage: 1000-1200 (our current house is 1600)
Maximum rent or mortgage: Probably around $3000, but we pay much less than that now.
Exclusions on property type: No apartments, no shared walls. Must be free standing. If it was a rental, it must allow pets (with suitable deposits and agreements in place, of course). 2 stories is nice but not required.
Minimum bedrooms: 3 (prefer 4, but we could live with 3–one shared bedroom and one office for each of us)
Minimum bathrooms: 2 (well, 1.5–two toilets/sinks. Don’t need two showers/tubs). Prefer 3/2.5, but could live with 2.
Proximity requirements: Needs to be reasonably close to shopping and fast food, and relatively close to spouse’s work (I telecommute, so proximity to work isn’t a big deal for me)
Other requirements: Must be in a good neighborhood/area. I could deal with a sketchy place in a good area much faster than a great place in a sketchy area. Also, must have access to high speed internet. Close to somewhere nice to go walking would be nice but not a requirement.
No minimum square footage for the house overall, minimum 144’ or so for my room (including closets). No minimum number of BR or BA - depends on number and habits of roommates.
Single shared wall (duplex) or freestanding house because my dog barks at people on the property and sometimes other things; it would get annoying for me and, more importantly, stress me out wondering what the neighbors thought if we were in denser housing with people to stimulate her to bark and to be disturbed by her barking.
Right now, a well-fenced yard with a bit of room for her to run around is also a must, but that would probably be the first thing I could compromise on if I had to - there are places around/outside of town to play fetch with her off-leash, they’re just not as convenient as throwing a ball out the back door or using a dog-door so she can let herself out to pee during the day.
While I’m in school, being in the same town is a must. When I graduate, I’m probably going to be working at least part time in two different places, so there’s going to be commuting.
Must be the sort of place where I feel safe walking my dog alone at night, and where I’m not worried about my car getting broken into. Fortunately, in this town, that’s not much of a problem.
Once the basics have been met, price is the biggest determining factor. I’m currently a student and will be living like a student for a while after graduation (thank you, $200K+ of vet school loans), and until my life changes radically I feel no need for spending extra on comparative luxury. I’m currently paying $575/mo for rent in a 3/2 house with two roommates; I would be willing to go up to 700 but go even lower after graduation when commuting expenses go up and I’m trying to support myself in an unconventional career path.
What I would find absolutely ideal?
This house [we jokingly call it the cracker shack] with a wrap around 5 foot overhang on the roof that shelters a wrap around deck on the front that turns into a ramp that wraps around to th eback of the shack, with it a good solid 5 or 6 feet above grade with seriously sturdy pilings as the foundation. I want the interior walls to be 9 or 10 feet tall, so the peak of the interior would be in the 14 or 15 foot range, the windows to be jalousies with screens. Remove the fireplpace but keep the little wood stove. Bathroom tweak would be to change it to handicap access with a walk in tub and grab rails. It also must have air conditioning and enough heat in case of a rare cold snap. I understand the coldest it got was 41 F a few years back.
It needs to be on Cudjo Key, Florida, on the land where Blimp Road hits the shore on the north shore, adjacent to the road so it has water, sewer and electrical hookup. I also need high speed internet, though cable tv is not required, I can get all my entertainment and news from the internet. I did notice I got excellent cell signal there. It needs to have a short dock with a grab rail so I can walk into the water and keep a small boat for fishing.
I need a handicap rigged small sprinter or momvan, home insurance and auto insurance. I have military medical and there is a Navy base 20 miles away in Key West. I also need a competent PCP, endocrinologist and cardiologist. A cleaner to come out once or twice a month to do hard core floor cleaning, and a washer/dryer [stacked apartment size is ok]
I need an income to support living there, and I want to have the house rigged for solar, and enough solar capacity that I can generally cover my use and have at least a small amount to sell back through the system, with battery banks to see me through the night hours.
What is the minimum to keep me happy? Someplace with a comfortable bed, temperature control, a small kitchen with access to a decent grocery store, high speed internet, good verizon signal, and space for a cat. I need a good computer that can manage the more interesting MMORPGs, my tablet for reading, music and netflix, and decent parking for handicap access transport, and a cleaner to come once or twice a month to do major floor washing. My own washer/dryer, stacked apartment size is OK. Good doctors, and the income to pay for it all.
I’ve lived in a shed in the jungle in Brazil, and I loved it. I also loved our cottage in North Wales, where before we drilled the well we would have no water in summer and we had to collect drinking water from the spring. Pretty basic can make me very happy, under the right conditions.
But we are also looking for a house at the moment, and these are our requirements:
75m[sup]2[/sup]+
2 bedrooms
one bedroom needs to be human-sized, i.e. not 1.7x1.9m (apparently problematic)
1 bathroom
dining room space
large south or west facing balcony OR garden that gets sun
storage space (I just need some cupboard space, not a garage or anything, but some flats don’t have anywhere to keep a hoover)
centre of town
character/good vibes
That’s what we want out of buying a house, but I don’t think that’s really the minimum that I need to be happy. I can be happy in lots of situations. This is just what I want.
Unless you’ve already decided on a location, you have to give at least as much attention to that as you do to the house itself. And not just the financial aspects but the living itself.
Some people couldn’t stand living in a city. Some people couldn’t stand living anywhere other than a city. Some people hate the winter snows and some people hate the summer heat. And don’t ignore the possibility of disasters like floods, hurricanes, or wildfires.
I think we often use the word “happy” when we really mean fulfilled or content. Happiness is an ephemeral emotion which can be induced by drugs, alcohol, sexual excitement, or bungy jumping.
So when thinking about matters like the OPs question I like to reflect on the poorest people I’ve been amongst in the Sudan and India. Families live in spaces the size of my laundry (which is quite large). Happy and positive people with gentle manners and expansive kindness.
If they can live in such modest places I’m sure I could too provided I had money, food, clean water, warmth, and was safe.
At least 10 acres. No rentals. Within 30 minutes of a grocery store and a hardware store. Running water, electricity, indoor bathroom. An acceptable kitchen. A garage/workshop. We can make improvements from there.
1000 square feet
Single family detached house
Full basement
Within 5 minutes driving time of a freeway entrance
Deck and 4 season porch.
Central heat and A/C
Minimum square footage - Probably what I have now. ~900, 3 BR ranch
Maximum rent or mortgage - Total payment (taxes, interest, principal) is $700 right now. When my wife gets here, probably $900-1000 would be the most I’d ever want to pay. No plans on it.
Any exclusions on property type (e.g., no apartments, only two-story units, only houses with a yard, no shared walls, etc.) - Now that we’re homeowners, I don’t think I could ever go back to an apartment / townhouse / etc.
Minimum number of bedrooms - 2, but we have 3, so I’ll go with that.
Minimum number of bathrooms - 1, but we have 1 1/2, so " "
Any requirements related to proximity (e.g., within 10 minutes of work, within walking distance to public transportation, etc.) - Biggie. My drive to work is ~20 minutes. Wife’s will likely be the same. Neither of us work in the city nor do we have any plans on it.
Anything else you’d want to qualify - Our requirements are fairly modest. We don’t want anything to do with having children, so our current setup is practical and will allow us to do things for ourselves without breaking the bank. YMMV, of course, but watching shows on HGTV make my jaw drop with some of the “requirements” people have.
If it were just me, I used to own this cute 700 sq ft house in South Minneapolis - I’d like it in a better neighborhood, with a better kitchen and a different layout for the bathroom, but the size was about perfect for one person and a dog or a cat. I don’t mind condos or townhouses, but would want access to a yard for a dog, I’m not a huge dog walker, but a small dog and a small yard (my current dog is big though).
However, I have two teenagers of opposite genders and a husband - a large dog who needs a yard. We live in 2000 square feet, and while we don’t use all of it, there is STUFF in all of it - not much of it is my stuff. I could get my stuff down to fitting in 700 sq feet (plus a basement) but I couldn’t get my kids and husband’s stuff to fit. So for them, we could be content with smaller, but we’d still need three bedrooms plus a space to watch TV and a seperate space for my husband and I for computers (an “office.”)
Rent or mortgage to be content - $0 or the full amount of the house in the bank. I’m sort of OCD on financial stability, and if there is a chance I’m going to lose my home, I’m kind of a nutcase.
I go back and forth on if ideal is in a city neighborhood, walking distance to a market and activities, or if its in the middle of nowhere with property, or a small town. Each has its advantages.
I think about this a lot - my youngest is 4 1/2 years from college and I don’t want to stay where I am forever, it was the “house to raise kids in.”
I think I can be happy with anything over 1,200 square feet, although as I’ve found from doing a lot of looking in the last year or so, the layout of the property can make a huge difference. I’ve seen 1,100 look sizable, and I’ve seen 1,600+ look small. I like to be able to sprawl out, and with two adults and two cats, I think once we get over 1,200 square feet, we can do that.
As for rent/mortgage, there are circumstances (depending on how much I’m paying for transportation and utilities) where I can see paying up to $2,500 for rent, but I would definitely prefer quite a bit less than that. I’m paying significantly less than that now, but I’m also not happy where I live, so…
In order to be truly happy, I’d want to exclude any apartment building where I would have neighbors above and/or below me. I tend to be fine with sharing a wall, but aiming here for “happy,” I’d say I’d like to have a detached unit.
I want a minimum of two bedrooms (one for us, one that is a combination of an office space and the cats’ room), and a minimum of one full bathroom plus at least another toilet.
The older I get, the more important proximity to work is getting for me, which is a pain because most of the neighborhoods close to downtown LA are not neighborhoods I want to necessarily live in. So I either have to compromise on my dream of life in suburbia, or I have to be willing to deal with public transportation. So I think my minimum happy scenario (based on my current job’s location) involves living about 30-45 minutes from downtown, but practically on top of either Metrolink or a light rail line (with frequent transit times) that take me right downtown.
Other things not covered: a big master bedroom. I know that all we should really be doing in the bedroom is sleeping (and other bed-related activities, as it were), but I really like to enjoy my bedroom space. I want to have a large bedroom with a huge walk-in closet and a very nice bathroom attached to it – that would make me happy. Enough space that sitting furniture can be in the room as well as the bed. Oh, and an attached garage. Our current living situation involves parking in a subterranean garage which requires walking outside through one gate, up a set of stairs, then using a key to access an external door to our building, and then a key for our front door. I want a garage that I can open with a remote, and then walk into my house from there. THAT would make me happy.
That changed a lot. I’m content in the house I’m in now but every time the lights dim when I turn on another light I sigh and when I sit in the back yard smoking my pipe and have to listen to the neighbors or worry that I’m being overheard talking in my backyard I hate it.
Minimum square footage - I don’t need much here I was perfectly happy with my 1,200 sqft home. Of course that was single the wife likes more spread. I’d say with kids on the way 3,000 is probably a minimum but we might do ok as small as 2,500.
Maximum rent or mortgage - I’m outrageously fortunate here. While still being happy I could probably go to 4K/month
Any exclusions on property type - Absolutely no shared walls and in reality I don’t want to be able to see, hear or be heard by anyone while I’m at home. I figure that puts me on a five acre minimum.
Minimum number of bedrooms - For happy I’d probably need 4 we have lots of overnight guests and being able to accommodate them easily takes the stress out of life. We have 12 people staying in my house a couple of weeks ago.
Minimum number of bathrooms - right now we’re surviving with 2 but we’re definitely not happy. 3 is probably the bare minimum but 4 would solve a fair bit of problems.
Any requirements related to proximity - Mrs. Digger grew up in the country and hated having to drive 30 min to buy groceries. I think I’ve got her to where she’ll be ok 10 min from the store but she’s be happier at the 5 min that it takes us now.
Anything else you’d want to qualify - To be happy I’d need to be somewhere that didn’t get hot in the summer or cold in the winter. Preferably near friends and family.
I forgot about the garage. We have our first garage with this house, and I love it. It is a detached garage, which people don’t tend to like, but I love that aspect, too - if someone steals my car with the opener, they can’t get into my house. If the garage catches fire, it doesn’t burn down my house. If we idle a car out there, we don’t kill everyone in the house. The 15 foot walk from garage to house is no big deal to me at all.
Other than that, I prefer to live in the sticks with some land around me, but as long as I could have a yard for the dogs, we could manage with a three bedroom 2 bath.
Having driven to some of the farm/ranch type areas outside of the DFW- I dream of making a living off of being a writer on a farm with 20 acres of land.
However- here is my minimum and still happy. Minimum square footage -2400- We are living in 4000 right now and until the two teens move out, I would hate to go less. When they were younger (5,5 and 8) and we lived in 2400 square feet, it was large enough to enjoy quiet but small enough to feel like we were living as a family.
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Maximum rent or mortgage** we currently pay about 20% of our income for what we have now as a rental- we would rather own but have not made any serious moves to repair our credit to make that a reality- man but if we did…
**Any exclusions on property type (e.g., no apartments, only two-story units, only houses with a yard, no shared walls, etc.) ** free standing single family home, fenced in yard with actual wood or brick fence, no chain link, large backyard for 1 large dog, 2 teacup sized parlor rats
**Minimum number of bedrooms ** 4
**Minimum number of bathrooms ** 2 1/2- the half for guests, no showers needed for when you visit…
**Any requirements related to proximity (e.g., within 10 minutes of work, within walking distance to public transportation, etc.) ** please no more than 45 minutes of a commute- 8-10 minutes to on ramp to highway as well as to grocery- nowhere near public transportation and let train sounds be ever so gently calling in the distance, as to make one think it was sounding in their imagination. Anything else you’d want to qualify trees- lots of mature trees especially one in the back to hang a swing for my AS son. I grew up in Vegas where the state tree is the light pole and having moved here, I don’t mind raking the leaves or dealing with bird poo on the windshields. Trees are so nice to have and IMHO make the home look more like a home from the outside.
The thing is, there is a certain appeal to a very simple life - i.e. could I be happy, yeah, I think I could. One of my girlfriends indulges in small house fantasies. There is a certain appeal to it. Especially if you are trading a big house, with all of its complexities, for simplicity. There is a Walden Pond need in many of us - to get rid of the bustle and trade it for simplicity. She can’t do it right now - three kids and a husband don’t fit well in 700 square feet, but I see her doing it when the kids leave the house. Another one of my friends has been living out of her van for the most part - her and her dog in a van with a camp stove. She loves it, its her choice.
A lot of people keep a couple of gallons of gas for their lawn mower and other yard equipment. If you have a generator in the garage, there could be a lot more than a couple of gallons in that. Plenty of people have propane, kerosene and/or white gas for various uses, including grills and camping equipment. Motor oil, paint, paint thinner, aerosol sprays, etc. can also be quite flammable. Greasy rags have to be stored properly or they can spontaneously combust. And then there’s folks like me who pick up fireworks on sale on July 5th, and store them all year in the garage.
Hmmm… a separate garage is starting to sound pretty good.
