Just bought a house...
 

It isn't really big (as it turns out, homes cost a lot in California).

We like it, but we have an issue we are debating about. Right when you walk into the front room you enter the living room. It is walled off on 3 sides, so you can either turn right into the living room or continue down the hall to the kitchen/dining room (which is also walled in on 3 sides).

The kitchen/dining room are the same size together as the living room (the kitchen/dining room is really just one room with no dividing walls, but we use some kitchen space as our dining room).

I would like to tear out a 5 foot section of the wall separating the kitchen and the living room. That would make the home feel a bit bigger. If we do that, though, we lose some cabinet space in the kitchen which we can't really make up because the dining room is in the way. So, my solution is to make our current living room a formal dining room and then expand the kitchen into a really nice kitchen.

My wife hates the idea because that would mean people would enter into our formal dining room and there wouldn't be a sitting area for people on the main floor. Sure, it would be odd. But I think the value of the house would shoot way up with a really nice kitchen and I think it is simply a better use of our space. We don't have any furniture in the current living room anyways because we are too poor to buy any.

Thoughts? Would eliminating the living room lower the value of our home? Would any decrease in value be offset by having a great kitchen? We have a big family room on the lower level that would act as a living room.

remember when I told you to move to Texas? the advantage of Texas is that you don't have to make these kinds of decisions.

eventually everyone will live in Texas.

Don't be so pessimistic; some of us will surely make it to heaven.

God forbid. We would all become insufferable proponents of our lame state. Who would be left to annoy?

I say that mostly about the other Texans I have known.

Yeah, everytime we look at housing costs on the west coast my eyes fall out of my head. Our house and lot out there would cost 4x what it does here.

anyway, Cali, to answer your question, I'd ask your realtor, he/she'd have the best idea on how the renovation would impact resale.

Texas would be a great place ...

... if it weren't for all the Texans.

I don't think your plans would create more equity in your home. I don't know of many people who would take a formal dining room over a living room.

Well, if I could convince my wife to move to Texas, I would do it in a heartbeat based on a friend's experience there. He recently moved to Odessa (I hope I spelled that correctly) and bought a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 3000 sq. foot home on a 3/4 acre lot with a swimming pool for $160,000.

Is Real estate really that much of a bargain in Texas? Or is Odessa a dive? I also understand that Texas sticks you with higher property taxes, but still, that sounds like a heckuva deal to me.

I could sell my house right now and pay cash for his place and have plenty left over for other things.

texas has no income tax. So they get you in other ways.

In general houses are a lot cheaper in Texas. In my neighborhood a 4bedroom, 2bath, ~1900sqft goes for about $150,000. I am about 6 miles from downtown.

It's definitely cheaper than SLC and Provo/Orem. Not to mention California.

Odessa is not a destination that one probably voluntarily chooses. So prices will be even lower in places like that.

Understood. Where is Odessa anyway?

I could be happy in Texas. I loved San Antonio when I was there for the Final Four in '98. I was impressed with the Dallas-Ft. Worth area when I went to a Rangers game in Arlington, but that was before the Ballpark was built. Houston seemed awfully humid, but nice. Never been to Austin but from what I've seen of it in the shows my wife watches on HGTV, it looks like a decent place.

Odessa is next to Midland in West Texas. It is not known for its physical beauty. Nor its embrace of culture. I am sure there are wonderful things about it, though, as any resident would point out. It is a oil boom/bust town. I think George Bush claims to be a native of Midland, Texas.

I lived in Odessa for one year. I met many nice people there. I have never been back, nor do I have a desire to go. It is, quite honestly, flat and ugly. It is an oil town and fills with roughnecks on Friday and Saturday nights. It is home to the world's largest Jack Rabbit. (really) It has no sewer drains so, on the very rare occasion when it rains, it causes torrential rivers of water in the streets. When it is not raining, which is to say almost always, it is dusty. The dust is insidious. It gets into every crack and crevice of everything. It is also where the real Friday Night Lights took place. Midland is nicer. Odessa is no place to move to, if you can avoid it.

This is where a friend of mine recently moved, but I had no idea what kind of a place it is. It sounds like I wouldn't enjoy it.

The best piece of advice that I got when we bought our first house was to sit tight and do nothing drastic for the first 6 months. After 6 months, you will be comfortable with your home and see what you like and dislike. Getting rid of a living room will hurt your case especially if there is really no place to sit on the first floor except in a formal dining room. A nice spacious kitchen is awesome but it will be a setback without any real living space on that floor.

Odessa. Man, I used to do some work in Midland and Odessa. Not my dream area though I met a lot of good people there.

Odessa is out in the boonies so it would be cheaper than Dallas or one of teh other big cities. But DFW is still way cheaper than Utah and most other cities. Mike lives in the city and in the Dallas school district (inner city district) so his area is even cheaper, but a 4/2/2 2000sf newer home can be had in nice areas of the suburbs for well inside $200K.

The house we live in now is 4/2/2, 2200 sf on a large lot (big back yard I mean but still a city lot) and will sell for $190K or so when we move to the new house.

Also on the property tax thing. They are definitley high but that's becasue there is no state income tax. And as the fiscal conservative that I am, I support that because it's basically a consumption oriented tax. If you make $250K / year but live in a $200K house, you pay the same tax as your neighbor who makes much less than that.

Somebody finally said it. Conservatives are in favor of regressive taxation. I have the smoking post to prove it. Thanks FM you have finally proven my thesis.

I'll say it too: a consumption tax is much more fair than an income tax. Give exemption to shelter and food, then tax everything else.

I just want more money in my pocket when I get paid than I do now.

You are okay with some people paying more as long as it is not you? You are human after all. I have had my doubts about that for a long time.

I am against any form of regressive taxation, period. Equality in taxation, in strict, percentage of disposable income would not be horrible. But progressive taxation, of the least oppressive ilk (smallest breadth of spread between highest and lowest brackets) is the most desirable.

I am for fair taxation, but I fail to see how one should have to pay more because one makes more money. An income tax, IMO, isn't fair because it takes money out of the workers pocket that could be spent on better things and that's where the consumption tax comes in. With more disposable income, there would be more consumption and more taxes generated. The only ones who get hurt are those who spend more than they can afford to spend.

Of course, I also say this as a card-carrying cheapskate. I would have even more to invest for the future or to bury in the backyard because I don't really spend a lot of my disposable income. A consumption tax would be good for me.

As for being human, I can understand you having your doubts. My wife often tells me I need to act more human than like an animal. I can't help it if I get caught up in the moment of little league sports.

I take issue with you calling something that promotes equality or fairness "regressive". I take issue with people of a certain political persuasion choosing to label their ideas as "progressive" and my ideas as regressive. I hereby opt those labels for myself. I am progressive, my ideals are progressive, my flat tax ideas are progressive - any idea you espouse is hereby regressive.

See how easy it is to manipulate language to give yourself a sense of moral superiority?

Your point is well taken, but inapplicable. In the parlance of economics a tax is progressive if the weight of the tax falls on higher income earners (thereby pushing progressively higher tax rates as you go up the income ladder). A regressive tax is one that falls more heavily on those with lesser incomes (a gasoline tax and a sales tax, unmodified to account for income are examples). These are the terms in general use in the world of economics. They are not my terms.

By its very nature taxation is either progressive or regressive, except at the point of absolute balance. The real test is what level of progressivity or regressivity is inherent in tax policy. For instance, the flat taxers advocate a regressive taxation system with progressive features (like allowing certain items or income to be exempted), while the system we currently have is a progressive system with (mostly) regressive features such as deductions for home mortgage interest, charitable contributions, etc.

You can feel free of course to call my ideas regressive, but these are not my ideas. If you do call me regressive I will be sad and think that you are a big, fat meanie.

I prefer to use the term "graduated" if the weight of the tax increases in proportionality to the thing being taxed (i.e. the constant of proportionality is > 1) Also, in my vocabulary a flat tax is not "regressive" - it is "proportional" (i.e. it's constant of proportionality is 1).

The terms progressive/regressive may be common but the fact that they are irritates me because they are loaded terms. Progressive has a positive connotation to it while regressive has a negative connotation to it. Technical terms without a positive/negative connotation obviously exist (e.g. we can discuss tax rates as having a constant of proportionality greater than, less than, or equal to one) so why aren't they used? In my opinion, the fact that the terms progressive/regressive are in common use among economists (as opposed to technical terms without underlying connotations) does not make them valid. Instead, I consider the common usage of the terms progressive/regressive a testament to politicization and enforcing of ideologies within the field of economics.

I'm on a quest to make my meaning of words be master.

Probably true. Mrs. Cali doesn't like the idea anyways, so that pretty much means it won't happen!

I agree. I wouldn't expand your kitchen if it means sacrificing your living room for a formal dining room. Updating your kitchen though, if it needs it, is usually the best thing you can do to add value to your home.

You are a pinko commie...