Buying a big house only means that you fill it with useless junk and pay a lot more to heat and cool the place. When I bought this place the first realtor did everything she could to get me to consider a 3K sqft mini-mansion when I was looking for 1K sqft and a basement. My house gains about 2% a year, but then again I did not lose 1/2 my home's value in the crash either. The big houses? They sit on the market for months, meanwhile homes in my 'working class' neighborhood in the sticks sell in 60 days because people can afford to live here. I'd love to break down and buy 40 or so acres, put a tiny house on the lot and build an observatory on a hill in the dark corner of the lot. Use the house as almost a mobile home, a place to crash after a night of astronomy. Some of these tiny houses cost more than my place, so I'd probably build my own in that event.