Long story short I own a lake / river lot in the hottest area of town. Since I bought it 2.5 years ago the neighborhood has taken off like crazy. I can now MORE THAN DOUBLE my investment. Origionally MrsRiverOtter and I were gonna build on it and live happily ever after. Now we're thinking the money would be nice to 1031 into other real estate investments. Plus the cost of construction went from $115/ft to 160+/ft. We were planning on a big house but don't want to be house poor. Any thoughts? Anybody? Beuler? Beuler?
First and foremost I would say to think about where you really want to live for primary purposes. Yes of course being house poor is not a good thing so weigh that heavily. Aside from that... your primary house is where you are at all the time and you need to make sure that you and your wife are happy. Happiness is first, Money is second. We have investments and we just bought our vacation house in Havasu but if it meant that we were trapped with the cost then we wouldn't have done it. Although we bought our house new we need something bigger and with a bigger yard as our family is about to start growing. This was a big decision factor. If I couldn't afford to upgrade my house here then there would be no house there. But heck if your not set on living on the lake then make yourself some money so you can really retire when it is time, not just live on social security and be a prisoner of your home and the senior special at denny's.