Well, the house I could dream up would be so incredably awesome, so well placed and over the top, it would be hard not to take the offer. But It would have to be ‘My’ house, and ‘My’ rules. Only got one crazy, unmarried sister and one brother who is unmarried and not too bad. Mom is so old, she won’t be around too long, and that house staff could take care of her till she checks out.
Hell, I’d be out in the boathouse all the time anyway. The 560 million dollar boathouse. That houses the 300 million dollar ‘boat’. Or do I not get the boat? I still get the boathouse. That’s part of the house. My imagination, so I say so!
The problem is, they would not want to live there. They’re weird.
I don’t cook, so my existence fights the hypothetical. In the scenario presented I would simply never go into the public areas where my twenty nieces and nephews are running around, most of them under ten and screaming at the top of their lungs.
But if I can’t avoid the horrifying screaming mob of prepubescents, I’ll have to pass. I’m noise-sensitive and they greatly outnumber me. My siblings and parents I get along fine with, and would be happy to have in walking distance from my living area, but my three sisters have just had way too many kids.
Growing up, my mother and grandmother were close. When we lived nearby, they’d visit in person weekly. When we moved away, they were on the phone several times a week in days when long distance calls were a thing. And then my grandmother moved in with my parents. And it was just too much closeness.
Too many adults sharing the same space, too many opportunities to get on each others’ nerves, so many stupid fights (they fought once for a week on making toast). And these were mostly nice decent people who both loved and usually liked each other.
I have a pretty good family - but I appreciate the fact that we aren’t all together all the time. On the other hand, free giant house with maid service.
I’m going to sort of fight the hypothetical because my dream home would have 1 1/2 baths but also 1 1/2 kitchens, the 1/2 being a wet bar, fridge, and microwave in one of the suites. There would be less competition for kitchen space.
But we would get in each others way more when we wanted to bathe. 1 1/2 baths is okay temporarily but not permanently, and 2 full baths would just seem too opulent for my tastes and would also make the house too big.
Based on the OP I’m basically picturing the “house” as five completely separate houses all circled around a large shared kitchen. I would have my whole personal suite of eight rooms (including a game room, my own dining room, and a home theater), which I could completely lock the rest of my family out of and prevent the horde of children from swarming in and breaking literally everything (which would happen - I have one sister whose kids are wild and demonstrably destructive).
So yeah, the only downside to this arrangement is that if I want to cook a burrito I will have to endure screaming kids running in circles around the kitchen island while I’m waiting for the microwave to beep. Which, since it would be a daily occurrence, is a nontrivial problem.
The hypothetical makes this an easy choice. Since the house and yard can be anything you want, you CAN arrange it so you only rarely need to interact with anyone you’d rather not. Both my parents are alive, as are my sisters and they have a whole bunch of kids, while I’m a cranky semi-recluse, but still - the fantastic living space and creature comforts would make up for it all, easy.
I suppose I’d accept my sister and brother-in-law living on the Amazing Property, if they had their own in-law dwelling behind an impenetrable, soundproof wall, with high-voltage fencing at the top and separate driveways.
All you guys flatly opting out of the deal of living in your personalized coolest house on Earth must have it really good right now, accomodation-wise. I very rarely want to see my relatives, and there are some I actively avoid, but hey. This is not a question of getting an extra room, or a swimming pool, for your sacrifice. It’s getting all you’ve ever fantasized about, plus ample opportunity for extra anti-relatives-measures.
Aren’t I basically inflicting my selfish desires on my relatives by forcing them into new home? They won’t be impressed. We all get along just fine and if circumstances required it I’m sure we’d live together in harmony. But if the reason we’re living together is because I decided I wanted to live in my dream home they won’t be happy about it. I’m not willing to subject them to that.
Right now I live in a 600 sf apartment with electric wall heaters and no A/C. I have to use a coin-op laundry and the AirBnB upstairs is noisy. It’s not great. Sure I’d like to live somewhere better, but not via the forced relocation of my relatives.
I guess I add should that since my parents are dead and I have no siblings, spouse, or children, my aunts and uncles (and their adult children and grandchildren) from all over the country would be scooped up into a single place. Not very cool to them, imo.
Well, the hypothetical does not discuss the wishes of the relatives. AFAIK it is assumed they are happy and willing to share a house and kitchen with you.
In my case, I’ve already thought about the coolest house I can imagine but it is too small to fit a lot of my relatives. I wouldn’t want a larger house because that would be less cool. Unless I guess I can imagine an upsized version of what I was thinking about and found a way to make it as cool, but I’m not going to put that work in for this thread. In addition, the extra maintenance, even if it were free, on a house that was larger than the < 3000 sf I have in mind would be too much of a pain to coordinate to make me want to have it anyway, and furthermore, if my relatives moved out, the larger house would feel too empty with just me in it.
My dream house would also be much smaller than what can loosely fit me and my relatives. But in this case, the house would need to be big enough for the anti-dream of living with your relatives. Of course everyone would clean their own living space, as in any such scenario. I would have no more cleaning to do than I would in my solo dream house.
Also, living expenses are the biggest expense there is to common people. As someone noted upthread, the free dream house would leave plenty of dough for such things as paid cleaning services.