Your Home and the Future: 5 Factors to Think About 

When you already own a home and you’re pondering the future, it’s difficult to decide what your next action should be. Should you stay or go? Is remodeling going to be the answer? Or should you choose another option entirely?

Here are 5 factors to think about regarding your home and the future.

Do You Have Kids?

Whether your home is larger enough is partly influenced by whether you already have kids or plan to one day.

For single men, this might be a bit of an open question just like watching movies whenever. However, some men already know they wish to be a father at some stage and can plan their real estate holdings accordingly. For women, most will be clear about whether they would like to have kids (or more of them) within the next 5-10 years.

In either situation, it’s good to clarify whether your present home will be large enough or not.

Need Expanding Living Space or Minimalist?

If you don’t have kids but find that you’re acquiring more stuff that needs a place to live, existing living space is probably quickly filling up. Pretty soon, the garage will become a new storage bay, and the car with be relegated to the driveway.

On the flip side, if you’re edging slowly toward owning less so your possessions do not own you, then minimalism may be entering your lifestyle. In which case, you may be finding that you’ve got empty rooms regardless of what stage of life you’re at.

Either life situation can illuminate plans around housing and the potential choices available.

Do You Need to Refinance Your Home?

If you’re staying put but feel like the interest rates have dropped and refinancing may reduce the mortgage payments, refinancing could be on the cards.

However, if you’re wondering whether a lower rate could make a larger mortgage to finance a move to a bigger home viable, that’s another possibility. Choosing between refinancing the home and moving is worth weighing up carefully because they’ll both have long-term financial consequences.

Do You Still Like the Neighborhood?

Another factor with potentially moving is whether you originally bought because of a great neighborhood, and it’s recently gone downhill. This could be encouraging you to look elsewhere and then relocate with all your stuff from thermostats to bedroom furniture.

Alternatively, if you purchased in an up-and-coming neighborhood hoping it would see a revival that hasn’t happened, then it may feel unsafe. In which case, this may make for an easier decision to move elsewhere.

Space for Outdoor Activities

Originally, you may have played sports with your buddies and partook in other activities that saw you spending considerable time outdoors. However, that may have declined as you’ve gotten older, and they’ve become busy elsewhere.

In this situation, maybe you’ve belatedly acknowledged that you want more outdoor space on your property. If the backyard is minimal or certainly inadequate for your needs, likely there’s not much to be done other than find a different house with a large backyard.

Lifestyle changes and new relationships often change what we require in a home compared to when it was originally purchased. It’s helpful to think about the future when purchasing real estate so you can avoid needing to move more often than necessary.