When you're choosing a home, you have to think both about today, and the anticipated future in the home. Will today's satisfactory floor plan later dictate a future sale that you'd rather not deal with?
Now there are many reasons today's home may not work for you in the future.
Your need for space grows or shrinks as members of the household increase or decrease.
Perhaps a job change and that commute is just a bit longer than you want to deal with.
Perhaps schools are declining, or taxes increasing rapidly, or that beautiful field behind your house is about to become 500 new houses.
And another reason? Health changes.
Me personally? From my 20s through my later 40s, I enjoyed playing soccer goalie in rec leagues both outdoor and in, and I played with a pretty reckless style. And while it was fun, I developed quite the thick medical file. Cracked/broken ribs on multiple occasions, a torn PCL in the right knee, torn meniscus in the left knee, shin splints, torn thumb ligaments and eventually a shoulder injury in my throwing arm told me it was time to hang up the gloves and the cleats.
The end result is that years later I have a pretty good hitch in my giddyup and occasionally I need some treatment for one of my knees. Stairs? I sort of dread when a client wants to look at 3 story townhomes and conveniently for me, real estate agent safety advice is to allow others to go up (or down) the stairs first. After you!
Fortunately Liz and I bought a ranch home long before I encountered these issues. I know that when and if we ever sell our home, our next home will be a ranch style home too. My only stairs are the ones to the basement and a few at the front door and coming off the back decks. Not too bad!
So as you think about buying your next home, take into account future needs.
Are the halls wide enough? Are there too many stairs? Is the yard too big to take care of?
Some things you can take care of with remodeling, some things like the yard care you can hire out, but all comes with a price tag.
Take a moment to think about it before you make a final purchase decision, you just might save yourself some grief in future years.
Bill of Bill & Liz aka BLiz
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