This blogpost resonated a lot with me, although we are not MDs.
DH (engineer) and I (software engineer) have been natural Mustachians for 15 years. Through the years, while living in our cheap first house with pretty view, we managed to pay down our low mortgage in a few years and save an additional 550.000 USD in index funds. The house was getting older and in need of a lot of repairs.
After 15 years of repairing the house and a lot still to do, we felt like buying a very new house. We looked around and only liked the houses in the high price segment (as we still need to be able to work in the city). Eventually we bought a house that cost 800.000 USD. It is 240 square meters. I have no idea how many feet that is, but it is quite big. It could sleep 5 people in separate bedrooms and we are only 2.
We bought the house cash, after selling our old house. Not so long after buying this new house, I found the MMM website. Then I was able to calculate how much I actually needed for FIRE. Let's say that this house has delayed our FIRE with a couple of years. I wish I had left that money in those index funds instead. We have discovered that we need to sell it to free up half of what the house is worth. The rest could be used on another place to live.
Also, the big house takes time to clean and I have started to dread it. There is a lot of floor to be cleaned, even when I only prioritize the rooms that are actively used. We also use 2 bathrooms on a daily basis, because one is situated practically close to the bedroom, but doesn't have a shower. The other one has a shower. That is 1 bathroom more to clean than in the old house.
We also have a lot of space. There is one room that DH uses for his sewing projects. Very nice to have that in a separate room, instead of using the dining table. But the room is a mess. I don't even bother cleaning it.
There is another room that contains a guest bed, my telescope equipment, bookshelves and some other stuff. And we have a whole attic, where we have another guest couch/bed and the old (big) TV. We bought a new, even bigger TV for the living room, as it is nice to be able to watch TV while in the kitchen. Again, this was before discovering this website. We were natural Mustachians, but would occasionally splurge on something unnecessary, like this house, a brand new car and a brand new telescope/bicycle. We did however replace our old dining table with a large second hand dining table and a set of fancy, second hand chairs. Just because we think a dining table in new price is just insanely expensive.
Luckily our garden is a natural patch of forest, just spruces and blueberries.
And there is the issue of the previous owner lying about a couple of things. We have already had to make 2 cases against him and there is another one coming up. This house generates so much stress only because of that.
Another thing is that there are much more neighbour houses standing close to our house and they generate noise. Much more than at the old house.
But I am now really looking forward to living in a much smaller house, although I would like to keep storage space for the hobby stuff, and a separate table for sewing projects. We will move out into the country where houses should be a lot less expensive.