So my wife and I are starting to plan for our future living arrangements. We are planning to have a kid (technically start trying) soon. Assuming all of the costs are the same, the scenarios are:
Stay where we in the heart of downtown but knowing the place is probably too small for having a kid (1000 square feet). Pluses are great location easiest commute for me. Traffic kills her commute and it’s loud due to hustle and bustle.
Move to the South Loop. Same price as here but 1500-2000 square feet. Less restaurants, hustle & bustle, and nominally dicier neighborhood. My commute would be the same an infinitely better commute for my wife.
Buy a starter home (two bedroom 1200 square feet plus finished basement) in my ideal (not my wife’s) suburb knowing in five years we’d buy a bigger home in the same suburb or a neighboring one or if she hated it move somewhere else. My commute triples and my wife would probably have to change jobs since her commute would quintuple (not actually a deciding or pertinent factor based on her career). This would halve our housing costs on a monthly basis. High tax suburb but great school system and it’s where I grew up so there’s a concern about MiL pop ins.
Buy a 3-4 bedroom house (2X the starter home) in a suburb closer to where she works for the long haul. Triples my commute (which is the same as the starter home) but definitely a step down in school system etc. from the starter home. Housing cost would be the same as right now, high tax suburb relatively speaking, but less than where the starter home is. Less character than starter home suburb but would keep us from becoming house rich cash poor if something happens.
Anyone have any advice or thoughts? Been in the same situation? My order of preference is 3,2,1,4 and hers is 2,4,1,3 best as I can guess based on conversations.
You’ve got 3 as your pick and three is her least favoured option.
She wants 2 and that’s your second favourite option.
Go with 2.
That’s our plan right now, but it’s only a temporary fix for a couple of years and the reason I picked 3 is that there are very few small starter homes in that area and the place is a steal for that area because so few people in that area want to live there without kids. It’s just such a good economic sense play, essentially getting our cake and eating it too.
Somewhat similar situation to you. Chicago but we’re up in Northcenter (pretty quite neighborhood about 10 minutes from Wrigley) in a 2 bedroom 1 bath (about 1200sq ft). Had our son 3 years ago and went through the same debate. We ended up staying put up to this point where we will be moving to a house (not starter house, something like 3-4 bed, 2 bath, yard etc…no more condos for us). We’ve narrowed it down to either Madison, WI or just up the street in Evanston, IL.
Ended up staying because the space we had was workable with a baby, then toddler (oh and a dog). It was nice to not have to deal with the hassle of moving etc.
I work from home mostly, and she’s downtown so our transit would have only gotten worse had we landed in the burbs.
My piece of advice is you’ll run out of room quickly so I think a starter home (depending on the size obviously) may not actually get you as much extra space and it would seem to on paper.
My other piece of advice - let both schools (elementary and up) and transit guide your decision equally. . Having the most amazing school is obviously important, but losing a ton of time to transit really sucks the time out of family time. Ours is 40 minutes to get home, and even that feels like too much as by the time we get home it’s straight to dinner, then bath, a little playtime, then bed.