The Lie of Needing a Bigger House

I was chatting with a friend recently who was dreaming about buying his family a bigger house in a beautiful neighborhood. As we talked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the real estate industry and our own culture have sold us a lie that bigger homes are better homes. The simple truth is that most people would be happier with the size house they can comfortably afford, provided that they adjust their expectations and values.

We are a product of our environment

Anyone who grew up in the United States over the past 50 years has been taught, in a thousand little ways, that bigger and better homes is one of the highest markers of a successful life. And so if you currently have 3 beds and a bath and a half, a sprawling four bedroom feels like an obvious upgrade. And from there, the only logical step is to one-up yourself (or your friends) by getting even bigger, with even more luxurious features. The truth is that we’re not good at knowing what makes us happy or we’d probably be content in our first apartments or houses.

If you’re reading this article

If you and your family feel a genuine need for more space, I’m not saying that it would be wrong to pursue that goal—only that you should ask a few questions first. Ask yourself if you’re buying a home you can comfortably afford, and whether the added space will actually lead to more flourishing for the people you love, and consider if that deeper happiness couldn’t be found by other means than simply having more.

There are costs of a bigger home

These may not be financial costs, but trade offs that are worth considering. Based on my own lived experiences and observations, here are some of the ways that a bigger home may, in fact, be worse:

You’re more likely to grow apart

My wife and I homeschool our kids and so we’re all under the same roof for most of the day together. But like any family, we naturally end up living a lot of our lives in a few core areas. This is something my wife and I intentionally steer our kids towards because we want them to always feel that their siblings are around. We’re going for an environment where you just can’t help but bump into each other. I have fond memories of having to share bedrooms with my brother growing up, and having only one TV that the whole family watched together. Those days are long gone, and I fear what’s been gained doesn’t measure up to the intimacy we had.

You have more to clean

Even in our modest sized home, I feel like we’re always fighting an uphill battle against clutter and debris. Our kids aren’t the cleanest of eaters, and keeping up with all the surfaces is a chore of its own kind. Just thinking about adding more rooms, more bathrooms, and more surfaces to maintain sounds overwhelming. Yes, we could pay to hire a cleaning service, but that’s not how I want to spend our family’s money. And it all sounds so unnecessary when we all fit quite nicely into the space we already have.

You have higher bills to pay

So far I’ve mostly focused on the non-financial tradeoffs of having a bigger home because those are often the least considered. But among the financial costs, I think it’s easy to underestimate the cumulative effect of having higher bills across the board. Of course, you’ll have higher property taxes and a higher mortgage payment. But don’t forget the higher utility bills from having more square footage to heat and cool, and more rooms to light. Chances are you’ll want to upgrade your furniture as well to match your new home’s aesthetic.

You lose the encouragement to spend time outdoors

I spend a lot of time walking the roads in my neighborhood and one of the things I like to do is speculate about the homes I’m passing. I imagine what life is like in those homes, how many people live there, and what they do all day. I dream about what kind of people I’d like to see moving into them. I noticed that the homes with smaller lawns tend to have way more clutter on the property. I think it’s because when you don’t have a lot of space, you’re encouraged to make the most of it. You’re pushed to maximize it and use the outdoors for your hobbies and activities. In the same way, I think living in a smaller home pushes you outside more often, whereas a bigger home makes you complacent about the fact that you can do everything you need indoors.

You’re further away from each other

I mentioned this fact already, but I think it’s a different point worth making. Yes, having a large home means you’re less likely to bump into each other, which is a loss in itself. But it’s also the simple fact the people you love are spread out further away from each other. When my wife calls from our bedroom with news to share or a request to make, I can hear her from practically anywhere in our house. There’s no need to shuffle around looking for her or taking out my phone. You might say that even in that small way, I feel closer to my wife because of the cozier size of our home.

You have more decisions to make

The larger a home you have, the more rooms you have to decorate and more decisions you need to make. Not only about how the rooms should look, but what to do with them and how to divvy up the space. I’m constantly amazed at the extent to which decluttering our home and limiting our wardrobe has helped to shrink my mental load. Having a smaller, reasonably sized home also helps to accomplish this. You may think more rooms give you flexibility, but they’re just more spaces to stay on top of and manage.

You have more to worry about

I’m sure someone could write a counterpiece to this very article, expressing their delight in having a bigger home that has fit their family like a glove. That’s fine. I can accept that I’m putting forth one perspective and that the reality is more nuanced. Maybe that person would say that ever since buying a larger home, they have less to worry about. That could be true if their previous home was genuinely too small for their family. But in my opinion, the only way that a bigger home would cause less worry is if you intentionally went with a very simple home that prioritized functionality over aesthetics. One man’s opinion, but most palatial homes are fancy, high-maintenance things.

Real wealth isn’t found in having more space to call your own. It’s having more time and energy to spend your with the people you love. In that sense, any dollar spent on maintaining or heating or furnishing more space than you truly need, is an opportunity cost you might one day regret. In the meantime, my family and I are going to go on squeezing one more person or activity into the small home we’ve come to love so dearly. There’s just something about being in close proximity to one another that makes us happy.