What Exactly Is A Starter Home?
The younger generations have not had the pleasure of growing up with 8 track tapes, no cell phones or computers. Some are even asking the question, what is a starter home? This term is a throwback from post WWII. Not many real estate agents or lenders use this term anymore, so there are a lot of people who don’t know what it is.
A starter home is a term for a type of housing that is usually inexpensive, not very big and something young folks just starting out can afford. It most typically will be a small one or two bedroom older home. Sometimes it will be new but small in a new subdivision. You’ve seen some subdivisions that have very small housing in one section and as you drive through, the homes get bigger and more elaborate. The smaller ones are considered starter homes.
The term “starter home” came about after WWII so that returning servicemen and women could begin life with a family in order to realize the American Dream by owning their own home. In this way, homeowners could get into a home with a smaller down payment. Then, as income and family grows, they sometimes would buy bigger homes, but the starter home was their first stake in owning a piece of property.
In today’s world, a lot of the starter home definition has changed to condominiums or bigger homes from the start. There is nothing wrong with this at all, but in today’s world the mindset that we want what we want when we want it sometimes gets them into trouble by biting off more than they chew from the very beginning.
Due to the economy and the current condition of the real estate markets, it’s time to rethink the older ways and start slowly so as to not bite off more than we can chew. There is always time to invest in something bigger and better along the way.
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