Downsizing: 6 Mistakes That Made Us House Poor in the First Place

Before we talk about our downsizing journey, I think we must first acknowledge all the slip ups that lead to us buying a house we would desperately want to sell only 18 months later.

I still remember scrolling my Mac desktop late one night. Legs crisscrossed on our living room floor, elbow resting on my knee, chin resting on my fist.

Our townhouse had sold within the first four days of putting it on the market, and we had already delayed the closing date because we couldn’t find a house to buy that met all of our specifications.

Naturally, Tom and I were hoping to find a house with four bedrooms since we had three children. An open floor plan, master bath, and space for me to put my photography studio.

I like to think of myself as pretty flexible, open minded person, but after over a month of looking at houses, it seemed like we were coming up empty handed over and over again. There seemed to be absolutely zero houses on the market that we liked and that fit within our price range. No houses felt absolutely perfect and we didn’t want to settle. I mean, if you’re going to be paying for something for thirty years, you kind of want to like the place, am I right?

At the end of the day, (end of the month, really), we weren’t finding anything in our price range. Tom has always had a more firm idea on how much he wants to spend on a house while I tend to be someone who believes in wiggle room. Throughout the home shopping process, I had done my best to be respectful of his financial comfort zone, but after seeing a lot of duds it was hard to keep the faith.

One particular night, after feeling worn out and hopeless after having spent another day trying to find a house, I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I dragged my finger along the key pad until the little arrow on my Zillow screen was hovering above the Maximum Price option. In two second flat I had increased our maximum price by $10,000.

That was the beginning of the end.