Purchasing a home to grow old in....

[Brett Sorenson]

Out of college (5 years ago) I "house-hacked" a duplex (Minneapolis) and it worked out great. I am closing on a second duplex in July and a SFH rental in July as well. My wife and I (both of us are CPAs) are beginning to plan on a single family purchase with the thoughts of raising a family there. With that being said we still want to look at it as an investment of sorts. In Minnesota plenty of suburbs have new SFM construction that can be purchased for 350-500k. Nice 3k sq ft "big box" houses that are great for raising a family....however there is still so much land that 15 years from now these houses will still be being built brand new ..and in my opinion that will inherently limit any potential appreciation for houses 10-20 years old. This had already happened in many of the burbs but another round of it will come a decade from now. So...we were debating purchasing a lakeshore property.. I wanted to get opinions on if I am missing something here. Obviously lake properties are more expensive however based on the current delinquencies in student loans and sub prime auto loans we see a recession coming. Would making a purchase like this help to "shelter" from a recession because the "McMansions" are theoretically hit the hardest when things go south. I am thinking that the long term appreciation (because of lake of inventory) will be far greater on a lake shore property. Any insight would be appreciated. Hopefully you enjoyed my ramble.