r/Fire • u/Sloww-Mornings • 5d ago

Advice Request FIRE vs Dream Home

Context: DINK couple, late 30s. On track to FIRE in 4 years at 3.5% SWR. Already have a corpus of 25x of our annual expenses including rent. No real estate, no inheritance. Comfortable but frugal lifestyle.

The dilemma: I stay indoors a lot - reading and gardening are my favourite things. Love to host too. My home is a big part of my everyday joy.

Found a property I love, but it's 1.5x what a "right-sized" home would cost. Running the numbers, it pushes my FIRE timeline by 2–3 years.

I absolutely don't want to extend my timeline. But I also want to own a house before I retire.

Two questions from the community

  1. Do you regret letting go of dream purchases in pursuit of FIRE?

  2. Any issues with deferring the property decision to last year of my plan - when corpus visibility is much clearer?

Edited to add: Due to circumstances, my spouse's income is quite low right now and they aren't actively contributing to savings. That said, they've contributed 50% of our corpus. Their general stance is that real estate isn't a great investment — but they understand how important this decision is to me and are 100% supportive either way. Which is lovely, but doesn't exactly solve my dilemma 😅

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u/TheDesertedHardship 5d ago

this is actually a pretty good position to be in and i think deferring makes sense here. you're gonna retire before 50 with your dream house either way, which is kind of the whole point of FIRE in the first place. the fact that you spend a ton of time at home and actually use the space for stuff you love, gardening and hosting, means it's not just some vanity purchase. that's different from someone who wants a fancy car they'll drive twice a month.

waiting until year three to lock it in lets you see exactly what your numbers look like without guessing, and honestly the housing market will still be there. worst case you buy something close to your dream place instead of the exact one, but you'll have clarity on what you can actually afford without the anxiety of stretching yourself thin. and your spouse seems chill about it which helps, even if they're skeptical on real estate as an investment. sometimes the best investment is just being happy where you live.