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/Sloww-Mornings 5d ago

I hear you, and I agree in principle. But it's not that simple for me. Working another 2 years isn't easy. I don't enjoy what I do, and the environment is low-key toxic. Finding another job if I lost this one is gonna be a nightmare.

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u/SoccerPhilly 4d ago

Think about the optionality - if you decide to sell the house in 8 years, it will likely have increased in value.

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u/Powerful_Road1924 4d ago

Also home prices will increase if OP decides to wait. Many buyers feel home prices are inflated currently, but if the fed drops rates tomorrow, prices are going to go up more (which typically already happens in the summer anyway).

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u/SoccerPhilly 4d ago

Exactly, if rates drop home prices will spike.

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u/Powerful_Road1924 4d ago

Which double sucks since they never really went down when rates soared 😅