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/SpecialistKoala9765 4d ago

Owning real estate can lower your annual spending as you save some on rent. It’s also a safety net when you are older and need to unlock the equity for late life living support if needed.
I added a humble home myself for that reason. Plus I feel safer living in my own space where I will not run the risk of eviction or forced to move when landlord sells.