The Journey
Just Beginning: A Rented Room
Overview: The first space that you have the opportunity to choose and decorate yourself often comes during college or shortly after graduation, marking a pivotal moment as you begin your career. This space, chosen strategically, sets the stage for growth and equips you to face the challenges that lie ahead.
Goals: This space should reflect who you are or allow for self-discovery. In the process, it can become a place to experiment with new ways of living. It can keep you connected to old friends while introducing you to new ones, offering a setting to relax, have fun, and entertain. Ideally, it’s a space that’s both enjoyable and productive, extending or enhancing the standard of living you grew up with.
Challenges: Young people face many challenges when setting up their first home. A primary hurdle is managing costs while balancing goals like completing an education and building a career. This often requires careful consideration of rent expenses alongside access to good jobs, infrastructure, community, and environment—trade-offs that can be difficult to navigate. Once settled on a location, it can also be challenging to decide what to buy for the home and the quality of items needed. Additionally, finding roommates who align with one’s lifestyle and can share costs may present its own set of difficulties.
Transition: Moving Out
Overview: The first major progression often comes with a career milestone, bringing the financial stability to move to a larger, higher-quality home, perhaps for the first time without roommates. This shift invites a reassessment of previous trade-offs and a chance to refine one’s living situation based on earlier experiences. At this stage, one can consider what matters most—whether it's space, style, history, location, views, natural light, or climate.
Goals: Many early goals for a space—such as security, stability, comfort, and beauty at an affordable price—tend to carry over into future homes. At this stage, however, you may also prioritize being in the right location to meet a potential partner, especially if you’re drawn to a particular community connected by religion, culture, socioeconomic goals, or ethnicity. There might also be a desire to reflect your progress and impress others. Specific needs for your space could include accommodating a hobby, family, friends, or personal growth. Additionally, this may be the point where you start closely tracking expenses and fully understanding the costs associated with your lifestyle and home.
Challenges: Just as our goals evolve, the challenges of finding, setting up, and managing a home grow as the home’s size and complexity increase. This includes locating the right broker to guide the search and transaction, identifying neighborhoods that suit your lifestyle, and re-evaluating past assumptions about what you want in a home. Concerns often include the financial risks of a larger, more expensive home, along with the challenge of securing a substantial deposit and navigating a fast-paced, costly market. This is often compounded by other life demands, such as finishing school, relocating, and balancing relationships. Meanwhile, young people may seek a home they won’t spend much time in—choosing instead to socialize or work long hours—yet still want their home to offer a sense of stability.
Your First Home: A Rented Apartment
Overview: This is often the first space someone genuinely invests in. Though not yet owned, it may be transformed with updates like painting, window treatments, new hardware, and lighting. In the process, the home comes to reflect the life path you envision for family, friends, and career. At the same time, the greater capacity to invest also increases the number of options that one might have.
Goals: For many, the goal is to move to a home that reflects your personality and ambition. It should showcase your increasing wealth and status while also working within a number of constraints ranging from geographic to financial. Ideally, this space is perfect for you but can also accommodate friends, a romantic partner, and shared meals with family. For some, it might include space for entertaining, a well-equipped kitchen for cooking, and room for hobbies—all while remaining affordable enough to allow for saving toward long-term goals.
Challenges: In this period of life, many seek to deepen their understanding of personal preferences while balancing these desires with career demands—something increasingly feasible in an era of remote work. Challenges include the time required to set up a home amidst competing priorities, uncertainty around what and where to purchase, and deciding on spending levels and quality. Added complexities involve the unpredictability of how long one might stay in a given location, coordinating deliveries, tracking orders, managing returns, and simply finding time to be home for everything. Other challenges include setting up utilities, dealing with noisy neighbors, managing repairs, navigating negligent landlords, and moving if the space does not work out.
Transition: Living Together
Overview: This transition often begins when a couple decides to share a space, whether by moving into one person’s existing space or finding a new one together. A combined income often allows for a larger home that can accommodate new needs or interests, such as a home office, media room, guest room, or even a nursery.
Goals: The goal is to create a space that reflects both individuals and their shared ambitions, supporting the relationship with areas for time together and apart. It’s important to balance this with enough resources for shared experiences like traveling, exploring, learning, and dining out—experiences that can shape personal style and inspire new collections. At the same time, there may be a desire to start saving for a future home or other shared goals.
Challenges: Challenges include blending two styles, deepening mutual understanding, and managing the expectations of friends and family. Couples must also navigate two career paths and consider proximity to work. A larger space often means more domestic responsibilities—such as cooking, cleaning, and maintenance—and may require coordinating additional service providers. Balancing these shared tasks can be a key part of building a harmonious home life.
A Shared Apartment With a Partner
Overview: After finding the perfect space and planning how to blend belongings, it’s time to bring that vision to life—an experience that reveals the reality of sharing a home. This involves navigating issues like acoustic and visual privacy, coordinating schedules, and openly communicating needs and desires to balance alone time with togetherness. It can also be a period of reevaluation, where some couples part ways while others commit more deeply, perhaps getting married and inviting friends to contribute to their home goals through a registry.
Goals: Most couples hope to build a life together, creating a home that reflects shared values and serves as a foundation for future ambitions. This may include hosting gatherings to connect with others, network, and showcase a successful, welcoming space. It’s also about building a meaningful collection—investing in items with lasting value, caring for family heirlooms, and cultivating a home that supports growth and the next stages in life.
Challenges: Challenges include understanding the space’s operational and maintenance needs, finding the right professionals for modifications, and balancing the desire to expand a collection with the need for flexibility. It’s important to invest in items that will fit well in a future home and to recognize when it’s time to take the next step. Effective spatial solutions can help ease relationship tensions, and there may be a need to navigate a potential move if things don’t work out.
Transition: Marriage
Overview: This transition is often triggered by a career change, relocation, desire to start a family, financial windfall, or simply the urge to build equity rather than rent. It may also be influenced by friends and family making similar choices, having lived in an area long enough to see investment potential, or broader economic shifts like changing interest rates or a partner’s new financial capacity.
Goals: The goal is to invest in a home that will appreciate in value while ensuring a thorough understanding of both the property and the neighborhood to make an informed decision. This includes being near good schools, avoiding high property taxes, and for some, owning an architecturally significant home that reflects personal style. It’s also about finding a home that can be improved and made one's own, whether it’s a starter home or one that can accommodate long-term goals.
Challenges: The challenges faced in earlier stages are amplified when buying a home, given the heightened risk. This includes navigating new relationships with real estate brokers, managing inspections, and learning about building systems, water or seismic issues, and other factors influenced by location and construction type. Depending on market conditions, one may need to move quickly, requiring familiarity with the buying and closing process, credit building, securing a down payment, selecting a lender, and lining up financing. Some may qualify for down payment or purchase price assistance based on income and location, and others might consider buying a multi-family home for rental income.
Home Ownership
Overview: Homeownership provides stability and a sense of permanence, reflecting effort, wealth, and social status. It also brings new responsibilities, such as a mortgage and the need for ongoing maintenance. However, it offers opportunities to increase the property's value and tailor the space to personal needs, often providing more room for family. Homeownership can also serve as a new financial foundation for dreaming about and realizing the future.
Goals: A primary goal is to build equity and generational wealth while transforming the home to meet both immediate and long-term needs. This involves making the space livable, reflecting design ambitions, and finding the right designer to bring those ideas to life. The home should also be adaptable to accommodate a growing family, while remaining a great space for entertaining friends. Additionally, it’s a time to start building a more significant furniture collection and potentially other collections as well.
Challenges: Homeownership presents challenges, particularly for those solely responsible for maintaining their property. It’s essential to know how to care for the home seasonally and understand the long-term needs of an aging property. For those in apartment buildings or homeowners associations, maintenance may be covered by fees, but this comes with the challenge of navigating boards and regulations. Homeowners must also know how to manage projects that improve functionality and value, including understanding the design and construction process to avoid costly mistakes. This includes finding the best vendors for the price, managing mortgage payments, refinancing options, and handling services like waste, water, energy, and security. Being prepared for emergencies and saving for unexpected events is crucial to protect the investment.
Transition: Children
Overview: This transition may be triggered by a desire to have a child, make a career move, relocate to a better neighborhood, or invest accumulated wealth. With greater resources comes a wider range of choices, such as deciding between an apartment, suburban home, or rural property. This process also involves considering the new costs of homeownership and navigating external factors that influence both the choice of property and the timeline for making a decision.
Goals: A primary goal is to maximize the return on investment in a home while finding the best neighborhood for the family, particularly in terms of education, recreation, and safety. Ideally, this neighborhood also fosters a supportive community where you feel at home and can collaborate with others. The goal is to secure enough space for family growth, avoiding the need for frequent moves, and beginning a longer-term investment.
Challenges: The primary challenge is finding the right home amidst a fragmented set of search services and brokers, along with many properties sold off-market through private transactions. This complexity arises from the expanded field of possibilities, which must meet the preferences you and your partner have accumulated over past homes. It also requires evaluating and potentially altering those preferences, all while navigating a finite timeline that intersects with other buyers and sellers. Additionally, everyone involved lacks access to the full information needed to make an informed decision, making it difficult to anticipate future needs during the transition. These challenges may be compounded by balancing work, input from family members during the search, coming up with large down payments, and selling one’s existing home. If this occurs during a down market, one may have to bring cash to closing when selling one’s current home.
A Larger Home For Family
Overview: For many, this home will be one of their most significant assets and a tool for building wealth. For some, it may be the first of several homes, bringing a growing burden of maintenance and operations. These services are often fragmented, requiring coordination across multiple interfaces, making it difficult to manage. As more people live in the home, each adds new demands that the space, staff, and systems must accommodate.
Goals: The goal for many is to transform their home to meet family needs with ease and cost-effectiveness, or to have the luxury of doing so before moving in. This includes streamlining operations to spend more time enjoying the home rather than managing it. The home should have spaces that all stakeholders can call their own, reflecting their style. For some, the home serves as a trophy or showpiece that symbolizes success, while also offering amenities like a pool, game room, garden, or tennis court. Ultimately, it should be a fun space that proves your hard work was worth it.
Challenges: It is difficult to balance expectations with reality—between our dreams and what can be achieved. This includes managing the materiality of the home, dealing with decay, and addressing the increasing risk of climate-related disasters. It’s essential to insure the home and ensure repairs can be made quickly if needed. This requires detailed documentation that supports accurate real-time valuations and guides replacement or replication. It also may be necessary to go through several modifications as family members grow up. This might also include managing, selling, giving away, and storing things that are no longer needed. For those interested in changing style trends and new home goods and services that can enhance how we live, a desire might exist to reflect these trends in one’s own home. These people may also want to share their home with others and to be recognized for their efforts.
Transition: Empty Nest
Overview: Several events can prompt a transition to a new home after raising a family. Children may have left for college, a divorce may have occurred, a partner may have passed away, or aging parents may need care. One might be ending their first career and beginning a new adventure that requires relocation. A couple may want to acquire a second home as a retirement experiment or simply seek a fresh perspective, community, climate, or culture. This stage offers opportunities for redefinition—a new image, a chance to let go of accumulated belongings, and a refreshed sense of purpose.
Goals: Many hope to find a space where they can escape from the demands of raising children and reignite their relationship. It should also be suitable for hosting family gatherings and ideally still located close to children. The home must balance these personal needs with financial considerations, including risk mitigation for retirement and liquidity in case of an unexpected event. It should be ready to move into with minimal work required, offer a turnkey lifestyle, possibly be laid out on one level or with an elevator to accommodate aging in place. Proximity to an airport for travel is important, as is being part of a community that aligns with their political or cultural values.
Challenges: A couple may be uncertain as to whether they should rent or buy at this stage of life. Renting for a period of time may offer a chance to test a new location before committing. At the same time, each person may have different opinions that makes arriving at a decision more difficult. These concerns often exist within the context of broader challenges of financial planning. In addition, couples may face pressure from family members to make decisions, such as ensuring an inheritance or dividing belongings when downsizing. There may be a need to pass on or find appropriate outlets for items that hold sentimental or financial value. The logistics of these decisions can be complicated, especially with aging.
Enjoying Life and a 2nd Home
Overview: Having selected the next home, you are ready to use it as a launchpad for the next phase. For some, this may involve seeking a new spouse or partner, while others might focus on using the home to entertain, now with more financial resources. It could also be about accessing new experiences that reflect success, or for some, showcasing a lifetime of collecting.
Goals: Most want the home to be turnkey and easy to manage. It should not require having to be there at all times and make traveling easy. It should be close to friends and family, while also offering access to new communities that support lifelong learning and keep the owners engaged. The home should be adaptable for aging, with modifications to make spaces, especially the bathrooms and kitchen, easier to use. It should remain a sound financial investment, potentially something children would want to inherit.
Challenges: Challenges include managing homes in different locations, deciding how to maintain proximity to multiple children living in different locations, navigating the renovation process, and dealing with fragmented new technology needed to oversee the home remotely. Furnishing a new home, especially if it’s a second or third property, may require starting from scratch and building a new collection tied to the location. This process involves learning about local artisans, history, and culture, offering a way to engage with and integrate into the new community.
Transition: Retirement
Overview: A health event may prompt the need for a home that better supports an aging body, which can vary for each person. This could involve retrofitting an existing home or relocating to a community that offers increasing levels of care as one ages, while still maintaining the comfort to which one is accustomed. For some, this transition may not involve moving, but accommodating a caretake in one’s current home.
Goals: Remaining connected to community and having the things that make one feel at home nearby is important, as is continuing familiar rituals. This includes finding the best standard of care and collaborating with children, while also adjusting to communities with limited space. It may involve making new friends, learning new things, and engaging in recreation and entertainment. For some, this period may also include finding a new romantic partner after the loss of a spouse, as well as planning one’s estate.
Challenges: Challenges include making difficult trade-offs, letting go, and communicating about sensitive topics like money and death. Confronting the death of a family member or loved one can bring tough decisions about inheritance, especially if family connections are distant. Deciding what to do with personal belongings that no one wants can also be challenging. Ultimately, this process reflects a desire for connection and for one's life and story to have meaning.
Considering an Assisted Home
Overview: For many, this will be the last home in which they live meaningfully and actively. It should be a joyful culmination of a life’s work. It’s a place that showcases wealth and cherished collections while also being unburdened by the past, making the eventual passing easier on family and friends. At this stage, the home can offer a profound sense of freedom and lightness.
Goals: The goal is to make the most of the time remaining, avoiding insignificant tasks and ensuring the space supports reflection and legacy planning. For some, this may involve creating an archive to review and refine, with a thoughtful strategy for preserving and presenting one's story. This process might include building connections with a community or institution, especially for those who cared for or built a significant home, often requiring substantial financial planning and support from the next generation.
Challenges: It may be difficult to navigate a new set of often fragmented service providers while ideally maintaining continuity with the past. There is a desire to avoid feeling old, to find joy in everyday life, and perhaps to take a final meaningful trip. Many want their final phase to be filled with positive energy that they can pass on to the next generation, ideally sharing this transition with someone from that generation. Additionally, there is often a wish to be recognized for one's contributions and legacy.
Transition: Planning Your Legacy
Overview: The final transition is something many may wish to avoid, yet it is both inevitable and necessary. Ideally, this phase is made easier by decades of using OurThings to organize and manage one’s spades and things, to foster meaningful connections, and offer ongoing support from trusted service providers. This stage brings a final gathering of memories, dialogue, and conversations with those who have shared in the spaces one has created and appreciated, along with the cherished things that have filled those spaces over the years.
Goals: The goal is to prepare thoroughly before it’s too late, ensuring that one’s wishes are honored and safeguarded against potential exploitation. This involves planning for the unexpected, addressing past mistakes, and mending relationships to pass on with a clear mind and a sense of peace. The aim is to achieve a smooth, graceful transition, feeling truly ready to let go, unburdened by the material possessions that once enriched and defined a fulfilling life.
Challenges: Challenges include facing a diminishing community and the need to identify those who will carry on after one's passing, a connection that isn’t guaranteed, even with children. Often, this is compounded by health issues that one or both people face. This requires finding people who genuinely resonate with one’s values and lifestyle, possibly through building an expanded community—a vision the wealthiest often achieve through foundations. Many feel a pressing desire to complete the legacy plan swiftly, with quality and enforceability.
