I strongly recommend getting a house where you can walk out your door and walk somewhere without feeling unsafe because the road immediately outside your house is dangerous if you aren’t in a car and have the destination you are walking be a pleasant environment to be a pedestrian (i.e. not endless stroads).
The impact on your health, especially if you can win the lottery and get a job within walking distance, cannot be measured easily and most people vastly underestimate the savings and quality of life impact from not having to drive everywhere for everything.
Thanks but that’s not really an issue no matter where I buy a house. I live in Denmark
That must be nice
It is. But I’m not originally from Denmark and people can be quite excluding and that’s why I’m afraid to feel lonely in a new neighborhood
Then I would definitely recommend moving somewhere where going out and meeting people is easy, whether it be hobbies, nightlife or other reasons to get together with new people and make friends. Definitely don’t buy a house somewhere where it takes a conscious input of energy from yourself to see others as when we become depressed that is the HARDEST time to get ourselves to push through inertia. If you are anything like me you are going to end up on your couch feeling sad and a lot of times you won’t push through that to drive the 30+ mins to whatever thing you were considering doing. You also can’t be anywhere near as spontaneous about interacting with people and participating in different community events when every time you do it requires specific planning. If you live in town all it might take for you to get involved in something happening you were unaware of or thought you weren’t interested in is to pass by it happening. When you live far away from things, you have to sit there on your couch and specifically make the decision while blobbing on your phone that you want to participate in whatever thing you are interested in, and that can be a lottttt harder when you are depressed, trust me lol.
If you want the feeling of being out in the sticks, pay attention to being close to mass transit or easy drives out into nature.
This decision is all about you.
I’m an introvert who works with people, I could be a recluse all year and I’d be happy. Without work maybe I’d be a little lonely at times, but there is ways to fix that for me, without relying on neighbours.
You seem to like having neighbours though, so that’s very different. If that is something that worked well for you in the past, I think that’s an indicator for the more expensive house. It’s a permanent thing, after all, and if you’re rather extroverted or at least need humans around on occasion, then you shouldn’t make yourself unhappy by buying cheap.
Hmm, perhaps you could try to find more people that came from the same plade as you?
When I lived in the boonies I had a house like that. It was on a windy mountain road that was rarely traveled except on Sundays when people would drive their classic cars around. I could sit there with a beer after mowing my lawn and have my own private parade, and walk the couple miles into town no problem.
For work I just had to walk down the hall because shipping my brain through meatspace to push buttons in a different place is stupid.
Honestly, that sounds like a great lifestyle fit for you, but for many people there is a huge risk in that lifestyle in becoming extremely isolated from other people and not feeling like there is an easy way to escape that isolation.
A couple of mile walk into town is not the kind of thing someone who is feeling down but wants to maybe meet people is going to do unless the bicycling infrastructure is pleasant and easy to use. It also leaves you heavily dependent on having a healthy body to socialize which again I think is generally a bad idea as it is the times we are in poor health that we need friends the most.
I really love being alone so it worked great for me. I hardly left my property and had so much upkeep to perform that I got in great shape.
But if you’re a person who likes people and needs human interaction I wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you really like Zoom calls.
Reclusive house all day long.
Guaranteed peace and quiet whenever you want it.
No risk of lame neighbors right on top of each other.
Lower mortgage payments to free up cash for other activities.
Likely no HOAs and laxer building regulations to improve upon your property.
Worried about loneliness? Get a pet or two, or plant a garden.Years ago I moved up to the mountains from suburbia, and I will never go back.
A few years ago I moved from the mountains to the suburbs and I hate it and can’t wait to get back.
I miss the stars…
Honestly my favorite part is the sheer volume of people, or lack thereof. The town I live in is small enough that we have a great community up here, and rude punks don’t last too long. People wave at each other as they’re going about their day, and it’s quite pleasant. It’s a ski town, so we get the influx of knuckleheads in winter and summer, but fall and spring are the best.
What’s the internet like in the recluse one , that part is really important to me .
Even if it’s shit, there are options for internet so long as the sky is accessible.
Choose the recluse house! I bought a cheap house with neighbours and now the recluse houses are expensive. I made the bad choice.
Where I live in Canada you can either get gigabit internet in the city or 7mbps internet out of the city without out many good options in between that that isn’t double the price .
That’s most of Canada really, outside of southern Ontario and Quebec. Sometime in the last 12 months Eastlink dropped their gigabit cable by $40 where I am so I’m hopeful for incoming competition finally. My 5 year goal is to move outside of town, so I’ll likely be going with skynet because I highly doubt I’ll have much choice.
Buy the cheap house away from people, only use short sentences when talking to people when you have to venture into town, make and sell hand crafted wood statues of what you see out your window, build an underground bunker full of state of the art spy technology to monitor the town you live in, create a secret Cabal of other people monitoring their towns, slowly take over your country by blackmailing everyone you can, make it a federal crime to even look at your property, retire and enjoy the privacy.
I did this and I recommend it
You guys can afford houses?
“Hell is other people” - Jean-Paul Sartre
“Hell is other robots” - Futurama
You can buy a house? Damn
A more expensive house even. Not so humble brag!
BTW OP understand it’s a tough decision but this is one of those questions social media is just shit for answers. Far too personal. Only advice is if cost of expensive house is anywhere near being a stressor, get away, becoming house poor is a total bitch and is a far greater hit than the benefit of having a dining room, or a finished basement, or running water or whatever.
Cheap house but get a subscription to a gym/sport activity with the money you saved so you have social interactions?
You might be on to something…
Buy a cheap house and enjoy having money. In a few years your mortgage will be less than rent for a flat.
Spent less on my mortgage than I was paying for rent and that was years ago. Housing is fucked.
This is the way.
Take the money you saved and remodel the recluse house exactly how you want. Maybe it’s different there but neighbors that socialize and befriend each other have gotten pretty rare.
Recluse houses are better for debaucherous parties of all types anyway. You’re more likely to get away with a little side hustle of manufacturing drugs too, which you could then invest back into the house, and parties.
Recluse houses are better for debaucherous parties of all types anyway.
All houses are great for debaucherous parties of all types! Your neighbours may not agree but they need to loosen up, maybe join one of those debaucherous parties for once
I live in town and occasionally throw debaucherous parties from time to time. The neighbors are always first on the invite list as they shan’t be complaining about the noise if they are participating in creating it.
It was fine meme until the “buy house” part.
Ikr? Must be nice to be rich.
Recluse house all the way, one can always invite visitors/neighbours/friends etc, one cannot easily do the opposite when you’re “too” close together.
Also, cheaper, means more money for banging parties.
banging parties
GIGGITY
Do not buy a recluse house unless you love spiders.
I have some in my basement. Not a big deal. They just want to be left alone.
What about a regular house out in the sticks?
Reclusive houses may or may not be recluse houses, you have to check.
OP is in Denmark, so no recluse spiders there lol.
Personally, I had this same decision a few years back. My choices were to buy a really nice house in town close to things with a small city lot, or buy a run-down fixer upper outside of town (20-30 minute drive) with a large wooded lot and all the space/privacy I could ever want outdoors. I chose the house in town because I was concerned that if I lived that far away from things, I would effectively be isolating myself and adding additional mental hurtles I would need to jump anytime I wanted to go somewhere, not to mention the effect it would have had on my depression.
I am quite pleased with having a grocery store within a 5-10 minute drive from my house. I have restaurants, bars, local shops, and even the public library within a 10-15 minute walk from my house. Having access to high-speed internet in town, vs satellite, or DSL out of town was also a deciding factor in my decision to live in town. Overall, I’m happy with my decision even if I don’t have a large private yard to go play in.
My advice to you is to make a list of services, amenities, and conveniences that are important to you about your future home and then buy according to which better fits into the lifestyle you want to live. Best of luck.
I’ve had neighbors for 28 years and they’ve never been a significant portion of my problems. Largely nice, mostly indifferent, sometimes annoying
Being close to things, short commutes, no driving and not being lonely though?
Remove any of those and I’m instantly worse off
