Recently clients of mine bought a smaller home even though they could afford something much larger. I sat down and asked them to list all of the reasons why they wanted a smaller house.
- Easier to maintain. Anyone who has owned a house knows the amount of time, energy, and effort to maintain it. All things being equal, a smaller home requires less of your time, energy, and effort to accomplish that task.
- Less time spent cleaning. Good reason but then again there are cleaners…
- Less expensive. Smaller homes are less expensive to purchase and less expensive to keep (insurance, taxes, heating, cooling, electricity, etc.).Less debt and less risk.
- Mentally Freeing. As is the case with all of our possessions, the more we own, the more they own us. And the more stuff we own, the more mental energy is held hostage by them. The same is absolutely true with our largest, most valuable asset.
- Less environmental impact. A smaller home requires less resources to build and less resources to maintain. True….
- More time. Many of the benefits above (less cleaning, less maintaining, mental freedom) result in the freeing up of our schedule to pursue the things in life that really matter – whatever you want that to be.
- Encourages family bonding. A smaller home results in more social interaction among the members of the family. And while this may be the reason that some people purchase bigger homes! But nonetheless, still true
- Forces you to remove baggage. Moving into a smaller home forces you to intentionally pare down your belongings.
- Less temptation to accumulate. If you don’t have any room in your house for that new treadmill, you’ll be less tempted to buy it in the first place (no offense to those of you who own a treadmill… and actually use it).
- Less decorating. While some people love the idea of choosing wall color, carpet color, furniture, window treatments, decorations, and light fixtures for dozens of rooms, like me!
- Wider market to sell. By its very definition, a smaller, more affordable house is affordable to a larger percentage of the population than a more expensive, less affordable one.I’d love to hear your comments to add to the list or why you believe ‘bigger is better’!
