I think for some people the idea of rolling an extra 25k of nicer finishes into a mortgage over 30 years is easier to digest than handing over a credit card to spend 5k on a couch.

I also think some people mistakenly think all of the nicer finishes are an investment. Some are, some aren't.

We call that being "house poor." I don't see the point of it either.

For me, the hunt for interior furnishings (during and after a remodel/build) is part of the creative process. I would not be creatively satisfied without decent furniture, art and accessories. The house and its "belongings" are seen as one.

Years ago, I went to a garden club meeting. They were held at members' homes. Fairly large house, only a few years old. They bought during construction. The downstairs was furnished, but the upstairs... I don't normally do "tours," but everyone else was. The children's bedrooms all had mattresses on the floor. No bedside tables. No bookcases. Nothing. Everything was on the floor. My first thought was okay, she is not a house person. Plus, they were spending the extra money to be in a great school system and they had a few horses. A few years later, she was caught stealing money from two places. I guess they couldn't afford the horses either.

Back to houses. DH's pet peeve is builders that build to be pretty, but are poorly constructed. Builders that space wall studs and floor joists a tad more to save a buck. Or using regular sheetrock behind shower tile. Build it to last!

As far as houses being an investment. It is, but it shouldn't be your largest investment. That should be your retirement/investment accounts. People should have learned that lesson ten years ago.

I don't even know if it's just the "house poor" phenomenon.

I happen to know that the 10,000 sq. ft. house, worth $2-odd million dollars, is mortgage free.

So it's not only a matter of simply not having the money for furniture. But overall the Size and Volume of the house and various Details or finishes throughout seem to be of great importance. The decor or furniture does not.

I feel like this sort of thing used to go more hand in hand.

And I was also talking to my financial advisor this week and I said I was going to take $X and I was hoping it would be enough to finish the house. And he said "Finishing your house is another form of investing" and I said "I always think of it as just spending money" . The reality of it is that it's somewhere in the middle. To some extent you have to
invest in it as a viable place to live and beyond a certain point it's just spending money.

I agree that housing is not truly an investment, nor is it a disposable expense; rather, it's a unique category unto itself. It's an expensive item (really expensive when you consider interest over the years), and you stand a good chance of at least getting your money back when you're done living in it ... but it isn't an expense you can liquify at any moment. Not unless you're looking to live in a tent. I agree that "beyond a certain point it's just spending money". For example, you need a kitchen counter top. You do not need a fancy marble counter top.

And the 10,000 sq foot house has some nice furniture in the most public formal spaces, but there are rooms and rooms of price point furniture some of which was probably picked up at The Dump.

Yeah, I'd rather have a reasonably sized house that's finished with comfortable furniture that will last. I'd call it Penny Wise, Pound Foolish.

I think for some people the idea of rolling an extra 25k of nicer finishes into a mortgage over 30 years is easier to digest than handing over a credit card to spend 5k on a couch.

And part of that is that all too many people don't genuinely understand compound interest. That 25K of nicer finishes add up to much more than 25K, if they're financed.

Years ago, I went to a garden club meeting. They were held at members' homes. Fairly large house, only a few years old. They bought during construction. The downstairs was furnished, but the upstairs... I don't normally do "tours," but everyone else was. The children's bedrooms all had mattresses on the floor. No bedside tables. No bookcases. Nothing. Everything was on the floor. My first thought was okay, she is not a house person.

My grandmother was a realtor, and she used to talk about this very thing. She said she'd sell a big, pricey house to a young couple ... then in a couple years they'd call her again because they'd be ready to sell, and they'd have their main family room furnished, but the other rooms'd be filled with card tables and the like.

I think more people think of furniture as something that will come and go with trends, so why pay money for something that will be "dated" in a few years?

Also, I have several younger coworkers with nice homes that will not spend on furniture until after the kids have grown. For whatever reason, they do not believe in the idea of teaching their kids to respect their furnishings, and assume (probably correctly, since their kids are not expected to refrain from trashing the furniture) that the kids will destroy everything anyway.

Nice furniture is only worth the cost if you care about it. Obviously plenty of people don't.

And I don't want to disparage anybody who is house poor because of circumstances.

I live in a HCOLA and people buy to get into certain school districts or neighborhoods and pay a premium for it.

If I had not bought my first place at a real low in property values, and bought my third place right after the real estate bubble burst and been lucky in some other aspects, I would not currently be able to easily afford my neighborhood.

But people who can afford X and can also afford X+ in a particular area usually seem to tend toward X + for the house rather than buying house X and using + for more than a temporary shade or sheet over the window. It's not just the people who are stretching to buy that hang the sheet over the window any more.

I used to work for a real estate developer who was always ticked off
when in his Southern Living award winning neighborhoods, new owners of a half million dollar home would put neon-color resin furniture in the yard.

I think a lot of people don't know any better about what is quality furniture. Most of America thinks that an $800 sofa from a major home store brand is top dollar. I'm not knocking anyone that can't afford to pay more, because they deserve access to new furniture too if they want it. But those people aren't building homes that cost several hundred thousand.

I also think more and more people just don't care. They're not interested in a sofa that will last even one decade, much less two or three. They know they'll want a new one in a few years, and they don't want to have anything invested in it.

And then there are people like my family. All but one of our homes was/is very solidly built. Nothing fancy, but solid. All were bought when the market was in our favor and all but one was sold when the market was in our favor. As far as furnishings my husband and I are at complete odds. I am expected to literally pull off a miracle with a pocket of change. I have a rather long story I will spare you all about a chair for the living room. The chair I covet is now on sale for $1,300. OMG says husband holding his heart. So, I find another chair on Room & Board I like, it's a swivel and around $700. Not a lot of money for a chair. Husband and son think that's ridiculous.

I still have no chair.

I refuse to put a cheaply made chair in the living room. It can't be done in this particular house.

I refuse to put a cheaply made chair in the living room.

This.

Is it at least somewhat a generational thing? Most of my friends would also not want cheaply made furniture. My daughters have a mix, based on both circumstances and finances (they are both in their 40's.) One lives in a lower cost of living area (I think) in a college town in GA; however the house was in the mid 6 figures range so maybe not? My other daughter lives in a pretty HCOL area, and they are in a ho-hum house they bought (low 6 figures) 9 years ago and it's probably tripled in value.

So I don't know. As usual.

I think it is harder for people to gauge the value of furniture than it is real estate. I do not think enough people understand the quality of finishes in real estate to affect the value there. With furniture, going up in price does not often equate to quality and it is often easier to just find something you like and can afford, especially if you do not anticipate holding on to the piece of furniture for a long time.

I am likely an anomaly in my demographic/peer group. I can tell the difference in quality. However, to bring that level of quality into my house will take a lot of time and savings and I really need to address the question of the opportunity costs of trying to achieve a higher level of quality. What other things could I do with my money if I settled for "good enough." There is also the question of time. Quality items demand more care be given to them. That care would have to be administered by me (no household help), and so is it worth it to invest that time in caring for the quality furniture or is it better for me to purchase stuff from ikea that will not have the same demands on my time? In this house it has been a mix. I have a wonderful bed from Thomasville purchased years ago that I will likely have for the rest of my life. I have some antiques that I adore. When my husband purchased oak twin beds for our 3 boys from the Amish store, I think that was a waste of money and something cheaper would have been wiser.

The quality of our house was a different story. We were of course limited by our economic situation, but we tried to do the best we could on the quality of the windows, insulation, cabinetry, etc. These things are harder to upgrade than furniture. Unfortunately, upgrading the quality of these things does not necessarily improve the appraised value of one's house.

Sorry, didn't read all the posts.

Houses are cheap financed over 30yrs at low rates. Furniture is cash or a credit card; much more current cash.

People know the house must-have buzzwords. They do not know anything about furniture. But they know that it does not appreciate and houses often do (just don't tell them it is the land that actually appreciates, but that is a whole 'nother discussion).

And I was also talking to my financial advisor this week and I said I was going to take $X and I was hoping it would be enough to finish the house. And he said "Finishing your house is another form of investing" and I said "I always think of it as just spending money" .

Unless you are adding significant space or function, it is consumption not investment. One has no way of knowing if the next buyer will look at what a person has done and say "well, we need to rip that out". Especially if you are not a fixnflip and have no idea how long your horizon is.

Even when one adds space and function, if you do it with high end finishes, you probably won't get your money back.

A lot of misnomers about housing renovations come from periods of high inflation or rapidly rising prices where a rising tide lifted all boats and it was hard to parse what elements drove appreciation.

SO and I have this discussion all the time. There seems to be gads of two levels of quality, 1. poor quality short life span, and 2. high quality but costing more than we could reasonably justify spending for that kind of item. Like cars for example, there are cheap ones I don't like, and expensive ones that have way more gizmos than I want or need. That sweet spot in between where true value lies for us is often like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Finishing your house is another form of investing" and I said "I always think of it as just spending money" .

My house was in poor shape when I bought it, so a certain amount of the work was and still is necessary.

On the other hand I am not kidding myself that if I put in an expensive but good-looking kitchen it would have the same net effect on the value of the house as a very nice custom kitchen, at least in my neighborhood.

It is the property, devoid of the house, that increases in value. I know this because when the house was appraised for the initial mortgage it had two bathrooms, and when I had the house reappraised because made another lump sum payment and shortened to a 15 year mortgage, the house appraised for more.

The house appraised for more. With one bathroom in the basement and a giant hole through the house where the other two bathrooms had been, and a bunch of exposed ductwork for the newer HVAC.

So the increase in value had nothing to do with the house or it's condition as much is as it did with the patch of dirt the house sits on and its increased desirability over that time period.

Hi leela , the circumstances in this house are different from other homes I have had. I always mix inexpensive often used with descent quality new to stay in budget. My other homes had living areas where one could put a nice CL chair at the end or in a corner and look nice. In this home you walk in through double doors to the open living room which opens to triple sliders which leads to the patio and pool. The only place for a chair is somewhat on the end of the slider area. You would see it first thing. On top of the chair needing to look nice it needs to be a certain style and color for that spot. Everything in the sites such as J&M or Gilt or "0" that has discounted stuff seems to have tufting or is in gray or other shades that would not work.

In this house I would not get a higher appraisal for a new kitchen. It's not my taste. The granite is not my taste. However, the cabinets are solid wood and it has granite and new-ish appliances. So, I'm living with it. For what I bought the house for, at the tail end of the slump, I'm sitting pretty as far as an investment. Don't want to bite into that part.

Some people would rather not spend the money at this point in their lives. ("Pookie, we just spent a bundle on this house. Let's let the bank account recover before we get expensive furniture.")

But some people just don't have time to make decisions and buy stuff.

When you're building, you're forced to decide quickly and you'll probably go a little nicer because you can't change it easily later (most people are remarkably unhandy!).

Once you're on your own schedule, you've got a job and family and it makes sense to use the cheap furniture until you can find the right pieces, and that takes time and effort and isn't as much of a priority because what you have works for now.

I understand being house poor in order to get a foot hold into the housing market, so my comment has nothing to do with choosing inexpensive furnishings out of necessity. I would rather live in a smaller house that is well furnished, with good quality furniture and lovely accessories, than live in a larger house that is not. I could never be comfortable in a house filled with "make-do" furniture, yet have a kitchen kitted out with all the latest must haves and the palatial, spa like master bath. Also, I think high quality furniture is much easier to care for than lesser quality furniture. Fine wool rugs, well constructed sofas and beautifully finished dining tables all hold up to tremendous wear-and-tear. Of course wear-and-tear is not the same thing as abuse. Children flopping unceremoniously on a sofa is not children using the sofa as a trampoline.

Pal,

If you think about it, it kind of *has* to be land that drives the appreciation of single family homes. The physical structure is constantly depreciating ... from wear, from damage, from age, from functional obsolescence, from aesthetic obsolescence, ie. changes in tastes and styles. So when houses appreciate, as they are generally wont to do, it is due to the land. Of course there are exceptions.

I am in total agreement.

My value went up with the house in worse shape and less amenities .

Therefore it can't be the house it has to be the bit of land it's on.

That's what I meant if it didn't come out that way.

Weighing in because I feel like this thread kind of describes our situation.

Our house is a lot nicer than our furniture, cars, clothing, etc. Not for lack of money but because those things are not big priorities for us. When our house was built, there were professionals involved who cared about the design and build quality more than we did (that is largely why those particular professionals were selected).

The best quality furniture pieces in our house are hand-me-downs from friends who work with an interior designer. I did try a decorator for this house but that didn't work out. I don't enjoy shopping for furnishings. I don't want to spend a lot of $ on something unless I am sure that it is right and I really like it. I will impose a waiting period, and at the end of the waiting period I usually decide against the purchase. As a result we still have some IKEA and Costco furniture that is 20/25+ years old that I have been meaning to replace for a very long time but never have gotten around to it.

So yeah, what Fori said.

For me, I am not sure that is quite it (?)

A house can be a high quality build (a very high quality build) and not have tray ceilings, double height rooms, grand entry halls with stairs, crystal chandeliers and pendants in the kitchen and bath, marble tile or other stone counters and other relatively elaborate or even flashy details.

When you combine that with very basic or even sorta dumpy furniture, it makes both look worse. Price point furniture looks perfectly at home in houses without all those "features" or "upgrades". It doesn't look good in a house with neo-"palatial" details.

If you are never going to get around to having furniture that really suits the house, why not build a house without all the frou-frou. Why not just build a house with a plainish contemporary interior like people used to?

Whats the point of an expensive freestanding tub with a chandelier over it when the stand to hold your stuff next to it is something crappy from Target? If that's all you are going to put into it when it's said and done, why not forgo the chandelier and freestanding tub to begin with? Because both elements cheapen each other.

Isn't that a stylistic dissonance rather than (or in addition to) a disconnect in quality?

Maybe there is a lesson when designing one's house to consider how "bossy" one wants the house to be. Our architect would have preferred the details of our house to have been more streamlined but I said the house had to be able to handle some amount of clutter/randomness without looking awful, because that's the way we live and I didn't see that changing.

I appreciate any conversation when someone can use the word "wont" and it isn't out of place.

Yes, it's also stylistic dissonance.

One of my best friends has a 20 year old sofa that she wants to replace and has asked my advice on picking one out. I asked her the budget and she said $500. Yep, Five hundred dollars. Now, she owns her home, travels all over the world regularly and while frugal, definitely has priorities which apparently aren't furniture.

I plan on buying a new sofa in the next couple years, will have it 20 years+, like my current one, which I will sell or move to the basement area, and expect to pay around 5k for it.

I did not mention that and recommended Craig's list and marketplace. But I don't travel much!

When you combine that with very basic or even sorta dumpy furniture, it makes both look worse. Price point furniture looks perfectly at home in houses without all those "features" or "upgrades". It doesn't look good in a house with neo-"palatial" details.

This would seem to explain a lot of the posts in the Home Decorating forum.

If you are never going to get around to having furniture that really suits the house, why not build a house without all the frou-frou. Why not just build a house with a plainish contemporary interior like people used to?

Because Instagram, Pinterest and HGTV make you think you shouldn't, and seductive lending terms and the crappy builders distracting from crappy quality with some bling features tell you that you can have the same fancy that the entire rest of the world on Facebook and Instagram except you have. And because there there doesn't seem to be any sort of design education, including an understanding that everything, from the house plan stage to the furnishing stage, needs to work together -- the rooms as they relate to each other, the exterior and interior elevations, the great outdoors and inside the house, the furniture. The outlets that could be providing this education instead get consumers, because they are consumers rather than homeowners, to consume regularly, frequently, and seasonally, with an insidious unconscious habit-training to want the new, cheap, and shiny. The focus for most homeowners nowadays, for both houses and furnishings, is on the surface. Unfortunately, one side effect to this lack of education is not homeowners clamoring for what they don't have, but homeowners/consumers quite happy with not knowing. Most would likely say, why shouldn't we have cheap and cheerful? And others will cheer, "You do you! If you want a Target tray table under your tray ceiling, then get a Target tray table and put it under your tray ceiling!"

Plus it can be hard to find good quality, even if you're willing to pay for it now. Because there's a lot of expensive crap out there too. Some homeowners might figure that as long as it's a crapshoot, you may as well get the cheap stuff. And people don't seem to be willing to wait until they can afford or find the good stuff. They want everything -- every last corner, including stair landings and random empty walls in corners of the house they don't even use (like the front door which has been abandoned for the mudroom) -- decorated and styled immediately, and that generally means inexpensive and readily available.

Also, I have several younger coworkers with nice homes that will not spend on furniture until after the kids have grown.

There's some sense in no buying a new sofa set while you have toddlers, but I can't see waiting two decades 'til you youngest is off to college.

SO and I have this discussion all the time. There seems to be gads of two levels of quality, 1. poor quality short life span, and 2. high quality but costing more than we could reasonably justify spending for that kind of item. Like cars for example, there are cheap ones I don't like, and expensive ones that have way more gizmos than I want or need. That sweet spot in between where true value lies for us is often like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I can relate to this elusive "sweet spot" idea. I think lots of goods today are either disposable or expensive-but-who-cares-'cause-I'm-putting-it-on-the-credit-card-anyway.

Our house is a lot nicer than our furniture, cars, clothing, etc. Not for lack of money but because those things are not big priorities for us.

Yeah, and none of us can make EVERYTHING a priority; if you're spending on travel, you have less for your cars ... if you're spending heavily on clothing, you have less for eating out ... but it does seem that people who value nice houses would also value nice furnishings.

If you are never going to get around to having furniture that really suits the house, why not build a house without all the frou-frou. Why not just build a house with a plainish contemporary interior like people used to?

'Cause common sense is no longer trending?

I appreciate any conversation when someone can use the word "wont" and it isn't out of place.

As a literature teacher, I noted it too. Made me happy.

One of my best friends has a 20 year old sofa that she wants to replace and has asked my advice on picking one out. I asked her the budget and she said $500. Yep, Five hundred dollars. Now, she owns her home, travels all over the world regularly and while frugal, definitely has priorities which apparently aren't furniture

In all fairness, most of us don't buy sofas on a regular basis -- I mean, I haven't bought a sofa in this century. Could it be that she genuinely is out of the loop in terms of sofa prices and thought that was a mid-range point? If so, she may figure it out as soon as she starts shopping.

She'll figure it out and probably won't buy one.

I have a friend who builds custom homes (in the 2.5- 3+ mio range. According to him, people don't care that much about the quality of the invisible things, such as insulation, better furnace/AC, even caulk), as long as the visible part is up to snuff. His wife, who does the finances, gets annoyed because he frequently will add, say better, sound insulation or better quality pipes/ invisible materials, simply because he has certain standards although their profit margin would be higher without this because the clients don't appreciate that upgrade.

Another set of friends just bought a very exclusive penthouse that has the latest in European appliances, very expensive materials. However, they have no clue about the sound insulation in the building.

(I see this similar to wearing clothes/accessories with in-your-face designer labels).

I think people don't really have an idea of pricing for things they don't purchase regularly, and that they may develop an internal "set" price for something based upon particular experiences at different times of life.

I know some of my "set" prices on things are probably about 20 years out of date.

My mother, who used a trim on the living room drapes that cost $90 odd dollars a yard way back in the 1980s, couldn't understand why a fully equipped car should cost more than $10,000 in the 2000s.

And if she stayed in a local hotel and brought the grandchildren they would get a pair of rooms on the club floor so the kids could use the pool at hundreds of dollars a night, but balked at paying $7.00 to watch an in-room movie. So it's not really rational.

______

I think the other disconnect is that Marble and Crystal and lots of mouldings and things--and sizes of houses-- used to be associated with good workmanship only, and modest materials could be associated with either good or poor workmanship.

Now, I see lots of marble and chandeliers and mouldings and such--and large houses---associated with lousy workmanship. And I think to some extent people are accepting of poor workmanship to get the volume and the bling.

Is it possible that people who buy or build expensive (whatever that means) homes also just don't have a clue that they should be concerned about, or at least interested in the things they can't see? I would think this would be more common when buying a home vs building one.

People seem remarkably clueless about infrastructure in general.

I think there are a lot of quality issues with finish work.

I am ultra picky, I realize, about the workmanship in my house. I could probably build a 1500 sq foot house and spend $1M and it would still even look modest, except that it would be built like a bomb shelter. This is why I can never build a house from scratch.

But in the Building a Home forum and in the Bath forum (especially) and the Kitchen forum, there are regular examples of shoddy workmanship where the raw materials are marble or other stone, complex tile patterns and expensive tile brands and things like that.

It's disheartening to me as a perfectionist of course, but to some extent it has to be related to the bidding process for the build or the project as well. And I think that since something has to give and a certain amount of square footage (even cubic footage really because of all the ceiling heights etc.) and then the "splurge" like the freestanding tubs--so where do the budget cuts come in?

The contractors I use are pretty clearly on the expensive end of things, but as a result my house is on the small side, it was less than I could afford, many of the materials are modest, and things like that. There are a few obvious exceptions coming though, a built in fridge, restored vintage cooktop and oven, my door frames and door hardware. I know door frames are a strange things to spend on.

--And obviously, especially on the Bath forum--it will be skewed toward questionable workmanship because the posts are often about problems. But regularly it seems as if people are having a problem and they are not sure why, but you can see that the work is not very well done, and they don't seem to notice that or relate it directly to the problem.

Could it be that she genuinely is out of the loop in terms of sofa prices and thought that was a mid-range point?

No. Not unless she is, like, 154 years old. I bought my current sofa in 1987 and was delighted to find a $500 sofa--it was a floor model and it showed, but we were able to fix it up. At that time the most popular small sofa Burdines sold was $900 when it was on sale.

they are not sure why, but you can see that the work is not very well done, and they don't seem to notice that or relate it directly to the problem.

Not only that, but they argue endlessly with the people who point that out. They think they paid a lot, ergo it must be good work.

It's hard to evaluate what "a lot" is, too.

I know that I live in a relatively high-labor-cost area, with a labor multiplier of about 1.3, or 30% higher than the national average. And then on top of that I know the people I use are higher than the local average.

So I have trouble evaluating. But I feel like I could only afford a house less than half the size of some of these houses because I would be paying twice as much for everything. And I am regularly surprised at how cheaply people are able to get some things done. It may be customary in their area. But I've had trouble getting an electrician or plumber worth their salt to walk in the door for less than $500.

But I can't really judge what "a lot" is for everybody. I had a client for whom I really found the best lowest price sofa (<1000 8 years ago) and slide-in gas range (~$1700 8 years ago) and calls it an "expensive" range. In GW we know an "expensive range" is probably something above $5000 for most people, but I know that this client's parents, despite being upper middle class, never bought an appliance or piece of furniture that hadn't fallen off the back of a truck somewhere and that her sister bought some sort of appliance package where she got a stove refrigerator and DW all for $1000 somewhere. So it's a matter of points of reference.

So I don't want to disparage someone for not spending what I don't think is enough money. The first time I did a major project I got an estimate that, in the opinion of someone I trusted was "a bit on the high side" and as it turned out that contractor and I parted ways and the final cost of the project was some three times that initial estimate, and the original estimate was "on the low side" in reality. I only know more about prices now because of experience, but how many people really (outside GW) build a house, remodel a house or kitchen or bath more than once?