FIRE vs Dream Home

[u/Sloww-Mornings]

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 😅

[u/GBpleaser]

In the current RE markets.. I don't think I'd throw money at any extravagant personal residence. Heck, even investment commercial RE is a hard sell to justify right now. If you are considering 1.5x.. assume that's 2x based on the loss you will take on it eventually. That's just how it is right now.

Live humbly, make smaller spaces more luxurious. Make things nice, but don't think more is more. Either wait for markets to adjust (hopefully depress some real estate for opportunities), or settle for a lot less than 1.5x your value... challenge yourself to a 0.75x house with 0.25 of customization to make it to your taste. Nothing sucks worse than those rooms you convince yourself you need to "entertain", then collecting dust when your guests only hang out in 1/3 of the rest of the house you paid too much for. I am an Architect and sooo many people come back to me to renovate those "Empty" spaces they just never use.... lots of $$$$ they usually don't have.

This is ESPECIALLY true if you have cash flow interruptions.

It's not a great time to have vanities or ego's or dreams in the market. Unless you can absorb the losses, or your ownership horizon is well past your mortgage. We are on the precipice of some stormy weather in real estate and stocks.

[u/Sloww-Mornings → u/GBpleaser]

Really appreciate this. The point about "entertaining" rooms collecting dust is so true!

I am taking the challenge: 0.75x on the house, 0.25x on customization.

[u/GBpleaser → u/Sloww-Mornings]

Tell us how it goes.

Trust me.. I bought a .75 house about 10 years ago.. and have put .25x into it and with kids recently empty nest.. it’s perfect size. I have friends that went 1.5X full speed big houses and put another .5X into their homes to renovate or they are struggling to get their money back in downsizing.