
There Are No Dream Homes - smacktoward
https://hmmdaily.com/2019/03/26/there-are-no-dream-homes/
======
nickreese
Bleh, what a terrible article full of generalizations.

My wife and I considered building a large 6,000 sqft dream home on acreage but
at the end of the day we realized that space wasn’t what made a home a “dream
home” but instead utility of the space and the ability for it to support our
lifestyle and kids.

Having toured many multi-million dollar homes and having interviewed several
architects we now view the opulance and oversized rooms as a liability in the
“upkeep” column of our family’s time balance sheet.

We decided to stay in our upper-middle class home and renovate it with things
that require less upkeep so we can do more living in the house and less
maintaining.

~~~
hakfoo
I've been amazed as to how badly designed new houses can be. Square feet
alone, I agree, is a near useless metric.

I'd love to see the user personas that went into the development process. I
don't see my needs in there.

A local builder sells a two story model with ZERO bedrooms on the ground
floor. If someone is elderly or disabled, or just breaks their leg and needs
to be in a wheelchair for two months, the house is basically unlivable.

The number of designs I've seen which devote hundreds of square feet to
seperate formal and informal dining areas, and near room-sized alcoves (not
isolated enough to make into an office, too big to be a hallway), while still
having 10x10 bedrooms, miniscule closets, and claustrophobic bathrooms baffles
me.

~~~
vonmoltke
> A local builder sells a two story model with ZERO bedrooms on the ground
> floor. If someone is elderly or disabled, or just breaks their leg and needs
> to be in a wheelchair for two months, the house is basically unlivable.

For better or worse, that has been typical of multi-story houses for over a
century.

------
mr_tristan
I’m thought this article was going to be about McMansions losing value over
time, but just seemed like an opinion piece with a couple of anecdotes about
elderly people having problems selling very expensive estates.

Here’s an article about McMansion depreciation: [https://www.fa-
mag.com/news/mcmansions-define-ugly-in-a-new-...](https://www.fa-
mag.com/news/mcmansions-define-ugly-in-a-new-way--they-re-a-bad-
investment-28633.html)

What’s interesting is that the valuations mentioned for McMansions are... like
an order of magnitude cheaper then the multimillion dollar estates mentioned
in this piece.

So... I looked for the WSJ article this was really a response to:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-growing-problem-in-real-
estat...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-growing-problem-in-real-estate-too-
many-too-big-houses-11553181782)

What is actually concerning was this statement:

> Boomers currently own 32 million homes and account for two out of five
> homeowners in the country.

So... given that boomers are less than 10% of the population but are 40% of
the homeowners, I suspect there will be a strong downward pressure long term,
since, well, all these boomers are probably in their home before “the home”.

~~~
lostmsu
Won't most of them just pass their homes to their kids? I am trying to say,
that maybe this 40%/10% is normal at any time.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Yeah, I was just going to say -- look at places like Greece. The home
ownership rate is about ~75%. It's pretty common for people to own multiple
homes, too.

The average Greek person is not wealthy, but the value of these homes is not
insignificant either. Mostly, Greek people live like they're poor, even though
-- in theory -- their real estate holdings are worth a small fortune.

I met a Greek lady with 4 houses, one of which was on a super desirable island
now -- worth well over $2.5M. She can only afford to visit the island once a
year for a week, but she refuses to sell the house. Not because she's
speculating on the value continuing to increase. Just purely for sentiment.

People are strangely attached to homes. And also (most) people see homes as
good investments. Recent history is really working as confirmation biases for
that. But long-term, objectively, housing has been an okay investment.

I just can't see all that collapsing because of a little downward pressure.
Especially when it DEFINITELY hasn't happened in most aging countries.

One could argue that it has happened in Japan. But Japan's real estate boom in
the 90s was truly unbelievable.

So it's really hard to say if house prices have gone down in real terms -- or
if they were just so ridiculously insane in the 90s that it had a long-lasting
anchor effect on prices ever since.

~~~
agapon
The property taxes must be too low then.

~~~
village-idiot
I’m not sure what the nominal tax rates are in Greece, but the level of tax
dodging in that country is famously high, I wouldn’t be surprised if effective
property taxes are very low.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Michael Lewis in his book Boomerang details this hilariously: The Greeks
wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many
citizens as possible to take a whack at it. I believe he said the effective
tax rate is under 12%. RE tax he said basically nobody pays.

------
rootusrootus
I am unsure what that blog post is trying to say, exactly. That some people
build big houses and regret it? Some others buy a house and then grow to old
to maintain it? Okay, so what? A lot of people build their perfect house and
love it. Many people live decades in their home (my parents have been living
in their house since 1970...). My dad still mentions to me every time we're
sitting in his back yard (an acre filled with trees he planted himself) that
it is his dream home and he can't imagine living anywhere else.

~~~
nlawalker
The pull quote in the middle sums it up nicely. "People guess who they are and
what their lives are about, and they guess wrong."

~~~
compiler-guy
Some people guess right and never have any regrets. Some people guess right,
and then life happens.

And yes, some people guess wrong.

But that article thinks everyone guesses wrong.

~~~
Retric
That someone enjoys their home is not enough to say they made a great choice
just a good one. People grow attached to all sorts of things.

My personal experience is people are most likely to enjoy a home that’s easy
for them to afford as it never feels like a burden.

~~~
daveslash
_" people are most likely to enjoy a home that’s easy for them to afford as it
never feels like a burden"_ \-- that is exactly my dream home.

------
shalmanese
“How buildings learn” is a book every software engineer should read. The
thesis of the book is that we predominantly take an aesthetic judgement of
buildings as static spaces and this pushes us into processes that are big
design up front.

HBL makes the argument that all buildings will intrinsically change in need
and purpose over time and “great” buildings are those who have adaptability
built in. He points to Building 20 at MIT as an example of a building that was
accidentally built to be adaptable and generally ignored within architecture
circles but beloved by the building inhabitants.

~~~
elliotec
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it while remodeling my
house (and am also a software engineer), and I bought 5 copies to give away
afterward.

------
Aeolun
I am honestly unsure what I would use a 7500sqft house for. Not even including
the garden/land.

Our (me plus wife and kid) previous apartment was 900sqft, and our house is
now 800sqft, and while a bit tight, this works pretty well for our family.

I like the aesthetics of big homes, but practically, I just don’t need all
that space. We spend pretty much 80% of the time in the same 250sqft (living).

I would love me a garage/workspace though.

~~~
jfoutz
I think it’s really great when everyone has their own space to hang out. Kids,
or teenagers can have their own room. The adults probably share a bedroom, so
maybe two extra places they can each make their own is pretty nice.

Nothing needs to be huge, but I think a door is a pretty big deal.

~~~
Aeolun
True, and we do actually have 3 bedrooms in that space. Just pretty tiny ones.

------
nikanj
> Ben and Valentina Bethell spent about $3.5 million in 2009 [..]. The couple
> listed the home in 2015 for $4.495 million, and have since reduced the price
> to $3.995 million.

It's somewhat insane that houses are automatically assumed to appreciate. They
have lived in the house for a decade, and it's no longer brand new. Why should
the purchase price now be half a million more than the construction costs
were?

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
Unless someone is going out of their way to buy a brand new home, nobody cares
about the age. You have the home inspected, and if the roof is good (replaced
recentlyish) and there's no structural damage, your good to go. It's not like
depreciation on a used car. A house is a house.

Hell, lots of times newer homes are more shoddily built then older ones.

~~~
saiya-jin
There are things which survive centuries like walls, and then stuff that
slowly disintegrates and is a proper nightmare to change/replace - plumbing,
electric wiring, general room layout with those thick structural walls,
size/layout of windows etc.

I can guarantee you that electric wiring from 1970 is something different than
that from 2010 (personal experience, sockets slowly failing).

Old apartment/house is definitely an additional maintenance cost and possibly
tons of other inconveniences, and should be priced accordingly.

------
jacob019
Can relate. After moving around a lot we bought our "forever home" 10 years
ago. Forever doesn't last that long. A big house owns you. We're trying to
sell.

~~~
blobbers
Interesting - we're contemplating buying our forever home in the bay area.
Currently living in a 3 story townhouse style that's very walkable to whole
foods, parks, caltrain etc. with a modest mortgage but considering moving into
the more suburban areas / driving areas so we have a yard to set kids free.

What about the big house is owning you? Mortgage and maintenance?

~~~
jacobolus
Speaking as a child of the suburbs, transit-accessible urban areas are a lot
nicer for the kids themselves. Even the nicest American suburbs suck for
anyone who can’t drive.

------
sigi45
Apparaently people don't watch enough of 'BBC Grand Design' and also 'YouTube
Tinyhouses'.

Otherwise they would know better :D

1600 sqft sounds relativly big to me and would double the space we have. But
size is less important than: \- Having light! Srsly like natural brightness \-
Good connection to work / city live \- nice garden with a view \- smart
building design like having a extra room for washing cloth, power sockets
which are well positioned etc.

------
compiler-guy
Yes, some people over build and others over buy, but it’s a pretty big stretch
to go from that to the title of the article. Plenty of people are happy in
their custom homes, and stretched to get them.

That there are some who have regrets doesn’t invalidate that fact.

------
CalRobert
I just bought my dream home. It's about 680 square feet (almost double if you
add in the wall thickness). It needs a lot of work. It's ~220 years old.

It was 68,000 Euro and is near the train, on a few acres of loamy land, and
has a few outbuildings I can use for woodworking, etc.

At that price I can treat it as a thing I use, and not some stupid investment.
It's cheap enough that if I want to move I don't have to chain together
mortgages, etc.

That's all I ever wanted in a home, really. Nobody seems to be building that
now, aside from the tiny homes movement, and those are maybe a bit _too_ small
(I have a kid).

------
apo
_... Eventually these houses will hold four families each, or they’ll go back
to woods and fields, slightly formaldehyde-tainted from the lumber. ..._

It's interesting to think of the future scenarios that would cause each
outcome to play out:

1\. Housing continues to skyrocket beyond any reasonable consumer inflation
expectation. The only way to "get in" is to go in with one or more other
families.

2\. Housing prices begin to fall like so many prices throughout the rest of
the economy. Nobody wants to take the risk of being stuck with an overly
expensive thing they can't unload.

~~~
andrewem
1 almost certainly requires zoning changes to allow multi-family housing in
the places people hype these kinds of huge houses today. Don't count on the
neighbors to support that, and keep in mind the ones with money will use that
money to buy influence.

~~~
jlokier
That zoning change might raise local prices a lot. Neighbours may believe
their own property will appreciate in value massively, and approve the zoning
change just for that reason, especially if it's advertised that way to them.

Never underestimate the ability of people to ignore everything else, when
property price increases are at the forefront of their minds.

------
Razengan
I would quite prefer a “Wizard’s Tower”.

A 4+ story vertical structure with 1-2 rooms per level, leaving more ground
space for a garden/hedge maze etc.

I wonder if more of us introverted techy types would prefer that too.

Would it be impractical?

~~~
groby_b
Yes. It'll be fun, and magic, and amazing. And then you need to get a new
piece of furniture on the 4th floor. A little bit later, you break a leg, and
everything but the ground floor is off limits for weeks.

You slowly age. Climbing stairs is not as easy as it used to be. Whenever you
want to talk to your spouse, they're guaranteed to be 2 floors away.

It's a dream home, but I'm not sure it'll survive reality.

~~~
Razengan
Yes, that raises the question of how the heck does the old wizard archetype
manage to climb up and down all day?

~~~
saiya-jin
old wizards with high level either levitate, teleport or summon minions who
carry them up obviously

------
jaco8
Our real estate agent summed it up: A Dream Home is any property my client
buys as long as I make money.

------
znpy
In the meantime, the tiny house movement is growing:

> [https://thetinylife.com/what-is-the-tiny-house-
> movement/](https://thetinylife.com/what-is-the-tiny-house-movement/)

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_house_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_house_movement)

>
> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tiny+house+movement&t=ffab&atb=v15...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tiny+house+movement&t=ffab&atb=v151-2__&iax=images&ia=images)

------
village-idiot
I'm in the process of purging a large portion of my possessions. I spent a
distressing amount of money collecting items that got used once or twice, got
put into a closet that cost me a lot to rent (hooray Socal!), and now are
taking up a large amount of my mental space trying to find a way to ethically
and economically dispose of them.

I cannot possibly imagine how much useless crap you can accumulate in a 2,000
ft home, let alone 7,000 or larger! Why in the world would you want all that
space?

------
Animats
Sure there are. But you can overdo it, or outlive it.

The Bay Area's finest example of outliving it is Filoli. It's a estate off 280
near 92. More than one square mile, in Silicon Valley. At the end, it was
occupied by one woman in her 90s, along with a large staff.

(It's now open to the public. There are tours and a cafe. The house is big,
but not monumental, like San Simeon. Mostly the place is gardens and
pastures.)

~~~
tonygrue
> More than one square mile, in Silicon Valley.

I was momentarily outraged, until I found it on a map. The San Andreas fault
runs _right_ through the center of the property. Makes me glad it's basically
a garden now and not a housing development =)

------
war1025
I don't know how or even really if it applies, but the phrase "too clever by
half", and in particular the article that has appeared here several times
before [1] came to mind.

Also a thing I've thought about, which is echoed in the opening bits of the
article, is that many people will buy or build a starter home, and then over
time build it up into something much fancier or larger. At which point, it
isn't really a starter home anymore, and who is going to want to buy such a
thing when they could just do the same over time except in the style they
actually wanted?

[1] [https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-
half/](https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/)

~~~
griffordson
It's always entertaining to look through the older Zillow listings for
moderately to very expensive houses. Without fail they are testaments to bad
taste. They'd cost a sizable percentage of the purchase price to renovate.
Yet, the owners just keep holding out hope that someone with equally bad taste
will eventually come along and snap it up.

------
isoskeles
Apologies that this isn't a particularly constructive comment, but I have to
say:

There is little more I hate in the world than articles that have a full
sentence as some header text and then repeat that exact sentence almost
immediately in the paragraph following the header text.

~~~
richk449
Why?

~~~
isoskeles
I feel like I've been tricked into reading the same sentence twice. My
precious time has been wasted. (I'm half-joking.) In the case of this article:

> A house is an investment, except it’s also a necessity, and it’s also an
> expression of status, which together make the investment wildly expensive
> and illiquid.

This sentence exists twice. Why include it as a header? The sentence is long
enough and this isn't poetry, so it is fair to assume the repetition wasn't
for any sort of artistic effect. Just leave that sentence within the context
of the paragraph where it's written. Maybe even bold it, but the reader
shouldn't have to look at those words twice.

I can maybe understand it when it's a quote from another person, under some
arbitrarily small word count, like ten. I assume there are some rules in
journalistic writing that allows for that style, such that it's normalized to
the reader.

~~~
function_seven
Those aren't headers, they're pull quotes. Badly formatted to look just like a
header. Also, I hate pull quotes for the same reason you do. I can't _not_
read them, and half the time they're something I already read, half the time
they're something I'm about to read anyway. I just don't see the point.

~~~
asdff
Pull quotes don't belong on the web. They made sense when people were thumbing
through magazines, not lists of website headlines. If I click your headline,
I'm already going to read the article.

------
exabrial
The one that's paid off is a pretty good step.

~~~
elliotec
And almost always a very, very large step.

------
1123581321
It’s certainly possible to draft a list of true needs, and wants that are
unlikely to change, and systemically search for or build a property that meets
them without introducing new needs or wants. For us, it’s a 2,000 sq ft Sears
kit bungalow we purchased after considering whether we could live the rest of
our lives here and whether our children would be likely to appreciate having
growing up in it.

------
stupidboy
the article is just a summary of the WSJ article. why not just post original?

~~~
RickS
Because you have to give them money if you want to read it.

~~~
stupidboy
[https://outline.com/rzbtHT](https://outline.com/rzbtHT)

------
devoply
For a steep discount I am sure it's someone's dream home who is in their 40s.

~~~
fopen64
That's what I thought. Put the house in an auction starting at $1 and it will
find its price point. Biggest problem is people thinking someone will pay
cost-plus-sentimental-value-plus-a-nice-profit when 2 houses could be built on
the same dime and under modern standards. Used stuff must be sold at a
discount.

~~~
staticcaucasian
That's why they say land is an investment and appreciates; houses depreciate.
Bet the land in those remote areas is still worth the small value they paid
for it while the houses are losing value by the minute.

------
justincormack
“spent about $3.5 million in 2009 to build their dream home: a roughly
7,500-square-foot, European-style house“ er no that is not European we mostly
live in much smaller apartments or houses.

~~~
jedberg
When us Americans say "European style home" we usually mean "Italian Villa".

------
cheerioty
How do these non-tech, low-quality, overgeneralized articles make it to the
top of HN these days? Voting broken or does it really appeal to the HN
audience?

------
dawhizkid
I don't get the point of this article. Some people regret buying mansions?

I agree that as someone who is passively looking and going to the occasional
open house, my "dream home" is one that is 1) in an urban center 2) does not
require a car to get to/from 3) is priced so that the mortgage payment is
comfortably below what I expect to earn 4) has a good amount of natural light
5) small enough to easily maintain and 6) the small space is functional.

Basically, I just want a small, functional, well-designed space in an urban
center within budget.

