{"id":12294,"date":"2024-03-18T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T12:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=12294"},"modified":"2024-03-18T12:24:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T17:24:04","slug":"starter-home-phrase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/homeownership\/starter-home-phrase\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Starter home’ is outdated vocabulary, here’s what to say instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collins English Dictionary defines a starter home as a \u201csmall, new house which is cheap enough for people who are buying their first home to afford.\u201d You won\u2019t find the phrase too often outside of the real estate industry.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much about the etymology of the phrase, but most likely, it\u2019s a marketing ploy to get people to buy into the idea of purchasing another home<\/a> in a few years.<\/p>\n

Grind your gears<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Greutman<\/a>, husband to Lauren Greutman, believes that the term \u201cstarter home\u201d should bother people. The phrase implies that you will upgrade later.<\/p>\n

Your starter home isn\u2019t good enough for the rest of your life. And not to get into how well Americans have it, what about people who will never be able to afford anything more? Is it an insult to them?<\/p>\n

Do you really need two living rooms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Older generations bought one home and lived in it until they could no longer be independent. In today\u2019s world, we buy a starter home, then upgrade to have more space<\/a>, to live farther away from our neighbors, to have rooms that are only used once or twice a year, and to make sure you have a 2 or 3 car garage to hold your vehicles and more stuff, some of which isn\u2019t taken out very often.<\/p>\n

But consider this: You could pay off your starter home in 15 to 20 years, if you budget right.<\/p>\n

You could be out from under a mortgage and have money to travel, send the kids to college, or even retire early. When you think about what led to the financial crisis in 2008, isn\u2019t it better to have a smaller house where you can make the payments than worry about losing your house?<\/p>\n

Be content where you are<\/strong><\/p>\n

Realtors are motivated to make sure that they have customers. If people buy one home with the intent to stay, will the market dry up? Probably not, because people move and a new generation will be ready to purchase homes for their own family.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think about that phrase, \u201cstarter home.\u201d It fuels consumerism and discontentment. Don\u2019t call cheaper houses starter homes, but just a home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You see the term in the MLS for fixer uppers, you hear it when Realtors are working with first time buyers. But the term “starter home” shouldn’t be in anyone’s vocabulary. Here’s why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337267,"featured_media":19535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[1684,1234,1683],"class_list":["post-12294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeownership","tag-definition","tag-real-estate-news","tag-starter-home"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/Neighborhood-houses-representing-sellers-market-and-selling-real-estate.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12294"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19971,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12294\/revisions\/19971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}