At 32, I Bought the House I Plan to Die In

Forgive the clickbait headline. But is it clickbait if it’s true? At Age 32, I bought the house I plan to die in.

Key takeaways:

• When it comes to buying a home, there’s more to the purchase price than meets the eye.

• The longer you live in the home, the more gentle it is on your finances.

• Having a bigger house doesn’t always bring you happiness, and if you hate cleaning as much as I do, it’s more of a burden than a dream.

I am happiest when I feel secure, when my financial needs are taken care of, when I know I have a comfortable place to sleep (camping is not my thing). Which is why, at age 32, I bought a condo in California that I’m pretty sure I will die in. Let me explain.

My husband and I were happily renting in New York thanks to a pandemic rent deal (four months over two years free!). Real estate prices in New York felt completely out of reach and frankly, the three-bedroom, well-lit, high-ceiling place we found was perfect. Then, a series of events happened that made me itchy to buy a home. The first is that the home I shared with my grandparents during my formative high school years was sold. The next was that the pandemic made me want to be closer to family and have more space in case we had to go through another prolonged pandemic. And the third was that the real estate bidding war battle royale in Los Angeles was so insane that we got priced out. So we looked east, to Riverside County and the stunning desert landscape of Palm Springs.

Too Much House

Landing in Palm Springs clarified an idea that I had been circling around for years: I needed a happy place that wasn’t too big. I didn’t need a four-bedroom house for potential future children to run around in. I didn’t need extra bedrooms for guests. I needed something for my husband and me to relax in. Something that we could own forever. Some place where I could walk to the grocery store. Some place I could get around in if I lost the ability to walk on my own.

Once I named that for myself, it became impossible not to notice how backwards our housing system is designed.

In addition to Blackstone and Private Equity firms tilting the real estate scales by buying up properties, one of the other contributors to the housing crisis is that older folks are still living in the giant homes that they raised families in—the 2, 3, and 4-bedroom homes where their children fought over TV remotes in the basement. And now, these empty nesters, either as a single person or as a couple, are still occupying a space that was built for a family of five. They don’t want to sell because housing is so expensive, and they’d get a lot less than they have now for the same price. And they don’t really want to move. I get it.

I think Shannon Leyko said it best, “maybe having 64% more house to take care of (and pay for) isn’t such a great thing.”

I found some 2024 data from the Census Bureau that says the median size of a new single-family home sold in 2024 was 2,210 square feet¹. So perhaps size is coming down slightly, but 2,200 square feet is still a large place! I’m no architect, but I found a site called HOUSEPLANS.com that sells building plans. A 2,200 square foot home has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and 2 garages. This is a huge house! When did we get so obsessed with big houses? I settled on a 1,700-square-foot condo with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It’s enough for two of us, maybe a kid or two, or at least some guests.

My Happy Place

I fell in love with the home I bought because of its architectural significance, as well as its ease of living. It’s flat with wide hallways. It’s open and airy and takes about an hour to clean. It’s got floor-to-ceiling windows with a dramatic mountain view, and all rooms look onto a central atrium with a small garden. The only downside is the white porcelain floors, which very obviously show my long brown hair when strands inevitably fall out. But hey, when I’m old, my white hair won’t show up on the floor!

This house is my happy place. It’s the view of the San Jacinto mountains from the living room, the eight-minute walk to a fantastic coffee shop, and a 15-minute walk to a grocery store and hardware store. When people think of a Palm Springs dream home, it’s a sprawling estate with trees, and a private pool. Sure, that’s pretty, but it’s a hell of a lot of work to keep up with. Annecdotally, friends in the neighborhood spend upwards of $1,000 a month for landscaping and pool upkeep. Now, before you start whining about doing things yourself and not needing to hire help, I’m talking about people living in a home when physical labor isn’t possible anymore. The idea behind buying this home was that it could be a place I could take care of on my own. A place that would also take care of me.

The Case for Buying Small and Buying Early

Let’s look at two retired homeowners. They have the same financial situation and the same home market value. Their houses are similar in size as well. The things that are different are when they bought their house and where they live.

Meet Enid and Marina.

Enid 👱‍♀️

• Enid lives in Riverside County, CA.

• She bought her 1,800-square-foot home 40 years ago for $200k, now worth $ 1 million.

Marina 👩‍🦰

• Marina lives in West Palm Beach, FL.

• She bought her 1,800-square-foot home last year for $900k, and it is now also worth $ 1 million.

• She put down 20% and her mortgage payment is $4,900 a month.

Both live on:

• $75k Social Security²

• $50k long-term capital gains

• Total: $125k annual income

This is as close as we can get to an apples-to-apples comparison.

Property Taxes

Enid – California (~$4,400/year)

Thanks to Proposition 13, California limits how fast your taxable home value can rise. Even though Enid’s home is now worth $1,000,000, she’s taxed as if it were worth roughly $440,000.

• $440,000 × ~1% ≈ $4,400 per year

Marina – Florida (~$8,500/year)

Florida has no income tax, but owners of recently purchased homes pay close to full freight on property taxes. Marina gets a $50,000 homestead exemption, but she’s still taxed on ~$850,000.

• $850,000 × ~1% ≈ $8,500 per year

Marina pays nearly double what Enid pays—despite living in what the people who think they are smarter than everyone else call a “low-tax state.”

This is what big, expensive, newly-purchased homes do: they bind you to high annual carrying costs, forever.

Home Insurance

Insurance is where the apples really start to look very different.

Enid – California (~$1,800/year)

California premiums are higher than the national average, but inland counties like Riverside, where I own my home, are still manageable. You can expect to pay roughly $1,500–$2,200 per year for a million-dollar home³.

Marina – Florida (~$6,000/year … if you’re lucky)

Florida’s insurance crisis is real. Between hurricanes, insurer exits, and spiraling rebuild costs:

• Premiums often range $4,000–$8,000 per year for modest homes⁴.

• Waterfront or older homes can exceed $10,000+.

For a million-dollar Florida home $6,000 a year for home insurance is conservative.

Income Taxes

Federal:

Both Enid and Marina owe about $8,700 after deductions.

They have the same income from the same sources, so their federal tax treatment is the same.

State:

• California: taxes capital gains → Enid pays ~$1,250. California doesn’t tax Social Security, but it does tax capital gains.

• Florida: no state income tax → Marina pays $0.

Florida is the winner here for sure. But remember, if you are selling off your portfolio to pay for your living expenses, you’ll likely owe either long-term capital gains taxes or regular income tax if you’re withdrawing from a 401(k).

Apples to Apples

Let’s compare their costs side by side.

Cost Breakdown

Marina pays ~$7,000 more every year for the exact same home value and income.

The longer you live in a home, the more financially gentle it becomes. The bigger the home—and the more recently you bought it—the harsher the costs. Now, there are tons of caveats and counterarguments to make here. For example, Marina may have owned property elsewhere that she sold and used the proceeds to purchase her home in Florida for all cash. But, the point I’m trying to make is that one of the surefire ways to solidify a stress-free retirement that doesn’t require a lot of cash flow is to buy the right-sized home for just you.

A smaller, right-sized home bought earlier than you plan to retire becomes:

• easier to maintain

• cheaper to insure

• cheaper to heat/cool

• easier to clean

• less stressful to manage

• and far less financially volatile

Right-sized homes retain their value beautifully because they’re accessible to more buyers, more ages, more stages of life. While my California home is a strain on my budget today, my hope is that if I hold onto it for decades, my costs to live there when I’m old and frail will be minimal.

Parting shot: I don’t know what I’ll die of, but I’m fairly confident it won’t be falling down a staircase in a house that’s too big for one person.

1. Here’s a summary of that Census report.

2. Readers pointed out that this seemed high. I had assumed there would be two people living in this home and thus two Social Security income streams. The 2026 full retirement monthly Social Security maximum payment is $4,152 per person.

3. Here’s a map of insurance cost in California.

4. Kiplinger has it at a $5,761 average.