I moved 4 blocks away, then renovated. Oof. I moved from a fixed up house to a trashed--but larger with a much larger lot in the same neighborhood. Kids didn't even have to change schools. Nobody had to get new friends.

We really liked our old house. We weren't even looking to move but when we saw this one up for sale we had to check it out and...

So what got us to move was things like having room to expand if we wanted to( larger lot). Having an extra bedroom so we wouldn't have to expand (we have frequent family visitors and it was getting disruptive to kick a kid out of her bed twice a month once she started school) (but we expanded anyway). Bigger yard so we could plant fruit trees. Bigger sideyard with actual vehicle access for a boat or small RV or car. Less traffic on the street...

Some stuff can't be fixed no matter what and some renovations can't be made without knocking down the neighbor's house, ya know?

I'm sure most move/remodel decisions are based on either changes in family structure or health that dictate a need for more/less space or accessibility, or job changes. That being said, I've made two moves for those reasons (single-to-married, job change across country), but my other moves were because, well, because I fell for another house. I'm fickle. Tudor Revival was all I wanted until that Storybook home winked at me . . . and then the big tile-roofed Renaissance Revival across town that lured me with promises of grandeur until a glass-walled MCM swooped in with a martini and stole me away.

I think the decision is truly one of balancing the pros and cons of each option. But before you do that I think you have to have a priority list of your must haves and must-not haves. If its not possible to remodel your current home to be "perfect" in your analysis, maybe some of the math has already been done. Maybe then you're looking at other houses -- either as-is, or with their own remodel potential. Or even new construction.

I've never actually considered a grand-scale remodel: the kind that adds hundreds of square feet, bathrooms, etc. Our remodels have been mainly kitchens and exterior work that simply added functionality and comfort for the two of us. We have, of late, considered adding a casita to our current home or trying to find a home with one already built. This is primarily because of the potential for any one of our aging parents or stepparents needing a place with family, but also because of our location in a tourist destination. We love having visitors, but our home is small and I'd like a little . . . distance . . . sometimes when we have visitors.

I decided that my ideal would be a house in a location with appeal to short-term renters (less than 30 days) where the casita could pay for itself on the rental market when not in use as our own guest house. If and when a parent needs to move in, the casita is there.

Our own particular analysis has included whether we could recoup in a sale the cost of adding a casita at the current residence (don't think we could), and whether a casita at the current residence would have appeal on the short-term rental market (some, but not a lot, as we're about 2 miles from downtown proper, so not within the walking range that most visitors want). Hence, the current home isn't a long-term solution.

So, we continue to keep our eyes open for other opportunities. Buying something closer in will be more costly, but we've adjusted to that.

I have been thinking of moving but am not real serious yet. We will not do anymore renovating on this home except possibly a revamp of patio floor and a window or two that need it. We actually wouldn't mind another home in the same neighborhood if it had vaulted ceilings and a larger driveway. Or, a house just outside of this neighborhood and across the street.

I like the house I'm in now but don't love it. I do not like the long expanse of eight foot ceiling in this open plan. I do not like the light ceramic tile in living areas. It would be a major expense to remodel floor areas as the previous owner had it installed on top of old tile. All solid wood doors and door moldings were cut to accommodate the extra height, even the double front solid doors (nine total solid wood doors). I think you know where I'm going with this domino. I would rather start from scratch on something more of an original. Some of those still have carpeted family rooms. So much easier to rip out.

The first time was when I remarried. The house in which I was living had been purchased when I was married to my first husband - brought babies home there etc.. I got the house in the divorce. My new husband (37 yr old bachelor) wanted us to have a fresh start in a house that was "ours". Did I mention that present house had been purchased in early 1969 for $23,500 and we assumed a 5 1/4% mortgage.

We called a realtor and quickly discovered that interest rates were between 15-17% depending on down payment, and houses in our school district were selling between $35,000-40,000. Well, so much for "our" house - we'd just gave to make my house "ours" and we did. We built a room on the side that was a library/tv room/study - it was 8' wide and 32' long so it actually worked. We also built a screened porch across the back (faced north so put in 3 huge skylights so DR and kitchen wouldn't be dark, added a wall in the LR to create an entrance hall, and did some decorating. FAR more economical!

When we moved to KY (rented in LA for 3 yrs after first house in MO), we had one weekend in which to find a house. We did the best we could but knew we'd be doing major remodeling - full former on 2nd flr, finishing unfinished half of that floor and moving a doorway on 1st plus some kitchen work. It cost far less than a larger home would have cost. We've done more 2 more times.

So much depends on ones house and neighborhood. It is very easy to overbuild either or both which is a big mistake for resale value.

We pretty much move vs renovate though we did do a major kitchen remodel in our last house where we thought we'd stay forever and ended up moving after ten years. We haven't moved that many times but it's more related to location or the land/lot vs the house. I'm unwilling to sink too much into a house that I wouldn't get back if I had to sell.

I wouldn't renovate unless I loved the location and the land/lot and expected to stay a long time or was reasonably sure I'd recoup a good part of the investment when I sold.

We went through that discussion in 2010. We bought our house in 1989, our kids were now finished school, and the house now needed major repairs and work. The only thing we had to decide was whether or not we were ready to downsize and take some equity (no mortgage) out of our house.

But we love in a very outdoorsy area, in the mountains of our region. I do a lot of trail running and we all hike, we are within 30 minutes of 3 skihills with back country hiking and skiing, and 90 minutes from Whistler and my kids and DH do a lot of skiing. We weren't ready to give up our lifestyle.

The real estate market was nuts (it still is) and we wouldn't have cleared enough downsizing to have it make sense. It's expensive to move and because the house needed some repairs we would have taken a bit of a hit on the price that we could get for it.

So we moved out of the house for 6 months and did all the renovations at the same time by gutting the house down to studs and plywood. We moved a couple of walls, rewired, replumbed, reinsulated, etc, and then put it all back together. It was expensive but cheaper than moving. In hindsight it was the right thing to do.

If we were older in 2010 we may have sold and downsized but we were only in our mid-50's and just weren't ready. We will probably stay another 10 years and by that time our house will need to be renovated again to update the interior. That will definitely be someone else's problem.

We paid for the work with saved cash and a small mortgage which has been paid off.

Around 8 or 9 years ago we faced the same problem. We looked at homes for sale because what we would spend on adding-on and remodeling would cost almost the same, but not quite as much. What kept us from building or moving is we like the land we're on. DH planted many many Oak tree's 30 years ago. All babies. Now they're fully grown and the morning shade, which is my favorite, just cannot be beat. Plus we have an orchard and a north wind block of evergreens.

Your property sounds amazing Oak!

I should have mentioned above that I am now in the downsize house. Love the location but the house is just ok even after some renovations. I don't know if anyone can remember my move but I sort of went kicking and screaming. I was sad because I loved my property and long daily walks in the somewhat country. However, we really didn't need the house size or the work of the larger piece of land. And, I do love having everything so close, shops, restaurants and beach.

You didn't say what the quirks are in your present home. Is there a better location you are interested in? Expanding family? Ready for one fl living? Want to downsize? Larger? Different school district?

Thanks all! Your stories really ring familiar for me - it's sorting out the trade-offs of money, time, convenience, long-term investment. I wish we had a home like yours @oakley, with trees and orchards to seal the deal for staying!!

@jakeabedy, your houses sound wonderful! I keep falling for houses but they are mostly above my budget unfortunately!

@anglophilia, I guess we're lucky to have only known a world w/low interest rates. But it sounds like in each case you wound up with a house you loved by renovating.

@3katz4me, you raise an important point - I don't really know how to guess whether we'd recoup our investment if we stay. Houses here seem to appreciate endlessly; OTOH we live in an area with a lot of teardown/rebuilds. My husband thinks we should just stick it out for another 10-15 years without massive changes since the next owner might well knock the place down.

@justerrilynn, sounds like you have some quirks too! Improving our house would require a lot of workarounds

@eandhl2, We bought our house very conservatively 15 years ago; priorities were schools and commute. We don't "have" to move now but the house needs work and frankly we need (and can afford) more space now that our kids are in elementary & middle school. Real estate here is totally crazy: prices in our area keep skyrocketing. Buying a nicer house nearby would necessarily take us outside our comfort zone financially. If we go a bit further out, there's a town w/great schools and less insane price escalation, but it would bump our commutes by 20-30 mins each way. My husband is totally opposed to that, and while I'm less certain, it would inevitably change our lifestyle a lot.

To complicate matters, our current house is on a busy street. I've made my peace with it, in part because the neighborhood has factors to compensate - especially walkability to bike trails, a community pool, and retail.

As @blfenton said, renovating and doing an addition would be expensive and very disruptive (I think we'd have to move out for a while) but cheaper than moving in the short run. In the long run, I still can't decide... thank you all for giving me more food for thought!

Oh yeah, we talk about this all the time. Our neighborhood is "hot" right now, so we could easily sell, but the big questions is where do we go? We have no children, so no consideration there.

Pros of staying: Single floor plan, good commute for both of us, have done a lot of major improvements like tankless, roof, HVAC, not much left on mortgage (big factor), low energy bills, can do some renovations/addition, can age in place, we know the issues in this house. No mandatory HOA.

Cons of staying: small house, major renovation potentially, maybe bumping out back of home, adding sunroom, expanding master bath and closet, giving up garden

Pros of moving: can get bigger house, different features, garage/carport, more land/lot, more entertaining space

Cons of moving: bigger mortgage, likely worse commute for at least one of us, maybe have to deal with more stairs, maintenance of larger land/lot. Don't want an HOA.

So, it seems like we will stay here unless something truly extraordinary comes up, or we have an opportunity to move out of this area to another part of the country or internationally. Although we could look for a home within the same neighborhood or next neighborhood, many of them are multi-level. The security of knowing we can also weather an economic downtown or health problems is also a major positive.

OTOH, I know people who move every few years, who take their proceeds from selling and keep moving up the real estate chain. That is not a bad idea either.

We got a bid on building out a room above our garage and the designer then did a full kitchen/utility and breakfast remodel as a way to connect the areas. Looking back, we could have just altered the utility room and put stairs up there, but all of that expense and bother and it wouldn't fix some other things about the house. We started looking around at what was on the market to decide whether to reno, see if there had been enough change in the market that it was worth doing more drawings and trying to come up with something or what. We didn't see anything, but we didn't see the value in going forward either.

Then, after dropping my son off at school, I just wasn't in a rush to get home and decided to enjoy some of the beautiful morning wandering a bit. I drove into the neighborhood right next to ours and spotted a house in one of my favorite styles with a for sale sign in front. I stopped and picked a flyer out of the box. The photos showed rooms with no furniture, so I walked up and looked in the windows. Then I walked up the driveway and looked into the kitchen. Called our realtor and got DH to come see it. Pool in the back yard, good bones, in need of TLC and a pink exorcism -- which we had just done on the last house. We bought it with plans to replace counters and appliances but removed wallpaper and repainted immediately. We have done a gut and reno on the kitchen, replaced floors, started painting again. Want to redo bathrooms and windows -- but this was the right house to put our stamp on.

Since our kids are grown, we had considered downsizing. Because of when we bought and the price escalation in Austin since then, we will triple and maybe quadruple what we paid for the house. However, since we aren't leaving the city the question became where we would move. In the end, we have decided to renovate our kitchen and baths this year and stay. These are our main reasons:

We love our neighbors and neighborhood. We are on a green belt where we can hike to Barton Creek, and our yard and the entire neighborhood is full of mature trees including many oaks. We also have lots of wildlife.

We absolutely love our yard, and have worked very hard on it.

We love the floor plan of our home, and the master is downstairs.

We have an old dog, and don't want her to have to try and navigate a new place. I know this isn't forever, but it was a consideration.

We love this part of our city, and it's convenient to DH's job and downtown.

We renovated (majorly) and now I want to move. The major issue is our lot: it's steeply sloping downward and pretty unusable on top of being very shaded. Our house is also too big for my liking.

Going through the renovation wasn't bad. I have a good contractor I trust and I enjoy planning renos.

i think if you are at all picky you might as well plan on doing renos wherever you end up.

I didn't take the time to read other stories, but I will share my own. We decided to renovate.

I bought the house before meeting my husband. It was 2br/1ba and worked perfect for me. I never planned on getting married. My husband and I were in it together about four years when we added a bedroom and a bath, moving from 1,250 ft to about 1,500sq ft. We like our neighborhood and have a lot of friends within walking distance.

We renovated in a down market. While we had some equity left and a chunk of cash, we didn't want a larger mortgage. By renovating, we used a little more of our cash then a down payment would have required and kept our mortgage the same. We also agreed that this would become our forever home. Because we have no stairs, that was a realistic decision.

Since it became a 3br/2ba we know eventually we'd get our money back if we were to sell. More importantly, we got the space we badly needed and can still walk home from parties after a few drinks!

Could we use a little more space? Absolutely! But now we have around 50% equity, a mortgage rate of 3.5% and a mortgage far below what most people pay to rent an apartment.

We were in our last home for 9 years before we put it on the market and moved. There were a lot of changes I wanted to make from the very first. And we did manage to do most of them over our years there. Opening up rooms, adding many skylights to brighten the rooms, new cabinets and countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms, better landscaping. All were improvements that didn't overprice us for the neighborhood. Our goal was to do what we could, over time and as funds permitted, and then see if the finished product was something we wanted to stay in forever. We knew from the get-go that smaller, more visual improvements would help us sell the place quicker and for more money if we ever did want to sell it. In the end, we decided to move on. We still hated the weird sunken tub in the master bathroom, still really disliked the Spanish tile floors which were a nightmare to keep up, and we wanted more room in the living areas of the house. The tub and floors would have been very expensive and disruptive to redo. And, an addition would have over-priced us for the neighborhood.

But, in our case, all the improvements we did make, as well as me staging it effectively, got rave reviews from the realtors who first toured it. Our house sold the first day it was on the market for over our asking price. All cash, if we could be out in 40 days. We could and did. And, we made a very nice profit, too.

Sometimes I consider looking for something a bit smaller and a bit cheaper, but I know the quirks of weather and microclimates of my garden here and have worked diligently to improve the soil and build the gardens. I am pretty certain that if we were to purchase a new place, it would be much more difficult to get DH to begin the garden projects I would most likely desire and paying somebody would be out of the question.

In your shoes, I would be hesitant to add more time to a commute for both parents, away from the kids' schools, especially as they are entering middle school. The older kids get, it seems there are more chauffering duties or things that come up and having at least one parent closer to the school is a definite asset.

Last time- we needed to have another bedroom and be in a walking distance to at least some errands. We couldn't add another bedroom even though there was space, technically speaking, since HOA would never approve it(condo) and frankly it would kill all the architecture too so I kinda understand the HOA. And of course we couldn't move the house.

So we moved. No, first we bought another place, then renovated it and added to it, then moved.

Otherwise I was very pleased with the old place. But some things can't be changed. And they became crucial.

(all our moves, and we had many, were about having to change location, sometimes drastically/catering to changing family needs.

it's my first time in life that I have a single family house. Never tried it before:) Never would probably since I'm used to apartments and condos-but it's very difficult to find four bedroom condo around here. Close to impossible. Maybe detached-but then you usually have zero lot. No privacy, worse than in an attached condo..and HOA is doing next to nothing yet you still pay.

We have lived in our house for 12 years and paid off the mortgage and had been thinking of adding to it from when we purchased but I also wanted to be able to hear water lapping my sail boat from my bedroom and our house is a half mile from my marina and the beach so I looked for years for a waterfront we could afford. Found some in our budget almost as nice as our house but the view taxes meant I had to sacrifice being a stay at home mom.

We did many small things to improve our house, finished lower level, small kitchen upgrades, and a gunite pool but many gut things took a lot of time and money too. Our house was built in 1928. Last year I finally decided to do the addition I had wanted to do when we bought but kids and systems got priority. We paid in cash , with a sign on bonus' help. I will be honest I was sure that after we signed the contract to do the work , my dream house in my budget would be available but six months after the last check was written no house has appeared that I want more than mine.

I live within walking distance to the beach, marinas, zaggot rated restaurants, shops, churches, library, schools and train. In the summer we bring a picnic dinner in a wagon to Thursday jazz concerts on the green. right now my oldest is playing with the neighborhood kids running between the yards and I feel like it was the right decision to add on!

Moving. I could see renovating but to make this kitchen functional would mean bumping out the house in a direction geographically difficult. Besides, I really wanna raise up poultry! (Other folk choosing differently are of course awesome!)