If you had to choose between a beach house, a house with a pool, or a mountain house with a hot tub, which would you pick?

Mountain house with a hot tub. Hands down. Assuming I am the one purchasing the property with my own money, of course.

• Beach House: The beach gets boring after a while. Beachfront property cost 2-3 times more than comparable property.

• House with a pool: Pools get crazy boring after a while. It's just a hole in the ground with water in it. A house with a pool is cheaper than a beach house so assuming you have the same amount of money you get way more house for the same money. Better than a beach house, but a pool, specifically an in-ground pool is a permanent commitment. I have a pool. Nobody uses it. I just maintain it.

• Mountain house with a hot tub: Have you been to the mountains? Holy crap. It's BEAUTIFUL. Also, just like the house with a pool, you can afford waaay more house than some dinky beachfront house for the same money. Also, when you get bored with the hot tub, just tear it out and put in a nice fire pit.

I don't want a pool but of those choices I'll take the pool. Don't want to live in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and I love the beach but the beach keeps shrinking, soon enough that's not a house on the beach. Houses with pools all over here, it's common enough so I guess insurable.

Mountain house, more things to do(gardens etc) and of course relax.

I want to live in a walkable, urban, area, so probably the beach house. Maybe down by Coney Island.

Is the house with a pool in a swamp, or possibly a bog?

Beach! Walk in that sand. Hear those waves. Plop your drink down anywhere and it'll stand up. Take a dip. Enjoy as much as possible until humanity ruins every drop.

In the real world I’d take the mountain house. In a fantasy world where rising sea levels aren’t a thing to worry about I’d take the beach house.

I like mountains fine but the sea calms my soul like nothing else.

Mountain House if solar/wind are feasible and I have sufficient clearing to grow my own food.

Otherwise, regular house.

I like mountains, hiking, biking, and I want to become self-sufficient where possible. And my wife wants cows and chickens, I don't think they would do well on a beach, especially when sea levels start noticeably rising.

Whichever is easiest to get groceries to.

I really wanted a cottage on an island in a lake in Ontario or Finland but getting food and stuff there is such a pain.

Im with the fedditor who said well only if hypothetical as likely all options are to expensive. Thing is that I would take the beach house as top except for sea level rise would put me off. Of course if Im super rich maybe I don't care about having to buy a new place super soon. Next would be the mountain house but only if for some reason it was close enough to a city to have transit and stuff around, which is unlikely but maybe exists in colorado or something (same would apply to the beach house but I think its much more likely to have that in beach vs moutains). In all reality I would actually prefer the house or condo with a pool as it could likely be located in a nice city with good transit. Honestly I would prefer a great indoor hottub and sauna than the pool.

None of the above in the real world; too much maintenance on any of them.

But in a hypothetical world where I didn't have to do the work, or pay for it? I'll take the pool.

A good swim without dealing with tides and whatever trash is floating around trumps the other two options

A home in the mountains. Hot tub optional.

mountain house, immediately

mountain house with hot tub! I hate sand

Mountain house with a hot tub. Climate change and rising water levels makes a beachfront house a poor idea, and nobody sane would want to live in suburbia. You won't have to deal with a HOA in the mountains, and who doesn't want a hot tub with a magnificent view?

no i fucking hate water

The first thing that came to mind when I read the question is maintenance lol. Salt is bad for a lot of things, and maintaining a pool is expensive. If the hot tub in the mountain was manual, probably that?

A beach house since it's less maintenance than pool house. I wouldn't do mountain house though since I don't live in a place that has them, and when I've visited places that do, I've always gotten dizzy and sick from the high altitude.

Becoming a mountain hermit is one of my pipe dreams, so easily the mountain. Hot tub is irrelevant but I guess if it's included I'll take it.

Could I get a mountain house without a hot tub? I don't want to have to maintain one of those petri dishes.

Currently got a beach (holiday) house and I could never imagine switching it with a mountain house/cabin or just a pool. Waking up in the summer to the sound of sea gulls and taking a fresh morning bath in the ocean can't be beat.

A mountain cabin would be the second choice. I got an uncle who built his own cabin in the mountains after retiring, it's nice and quiet, but other than hikes there's isn't much to do.

Just go to the local swimming hall if you want a pool.

I'm legally blind and can't drive, so I depend on delivery for a lot of essentials. So if I can still get those essentials then Mountain home with hot tub would be my preferred.

Beach house, without question. I spent my summers growing up on a lake. Every day I woke up to the light reflecting onto the ceiling from the waves. I fell asleep listening to waves lapping at the seawall. It's probably the most content and relaxed I've ever been. Could just be nostalgia for a life (and the teenage lifestyle) and people long gone, but to live that way again when I retire is my fondest wish. Probably out of reach, but I can dream.

Lots of fucking spiders on and in a beach house, though, lol. I still have nightmares about the way you'd sometimes open the sliding glass door and three or four fat ones would immediately drop down, I guess drawn by the temperature difference? So listen, beach houses are fucking awful. None of you should want one. If you have one, you probably want to leave. I'd be willing to take it off your hands at a discount.

That would depend I guess. I don't typically enjoy those kinds of things (perhaps bringing up my fear of depths and that I can't swim), and so the question arises of who it would be for. Visitors? Maybe this would influence whether I choose the first two, but as it stands, I choose the last one.

Mountain house without a hot tub. Although I'd accept a natural hot spring in the garden.

Mountain one. The tub would sit unused, but the hot water would be useful

If there's good surf at the beach house, that. Otherwise mountain house with hot tub. Pools get boring and are annoying to maintain.

I'm torn between the beach house and the mountain house. I love the beach and would love to be able to wake up and wander out into the waves. Especially if the beach features tropical waters and soft, rock free, sand. Though, this home could easily be monkey pawed by placing the house on some rock strew nightmare of a beach with cold waters (or the opposite, for those folks into foot killing beaches). That said, such a beach house would invariably be overrun during the tourist season, and hell being other people, this would greatly reduce the joy of living there.

The mountain home, on the other hand, offers a wonderful sense of solitude. And skinny dipping with the wife in a hot tub is a fantastic way to start an autumn evening. Though, even in the mountains, you can find subdivisions where the houses are piled on top of each other and the "sense of solitude" has trouble being maintained with the neighbors plainly visible though the trees. And once you get into full blown winter, the cold can start to wear on you. So again, possibly a mixed bag, depending on the specific circumstances.

So ya, I guess I'd take the beach house and just take vacations to somewhere else during the high season. Maybe set it up as an AirBnB or the like for those times. Though, the idea of random strangers doing gods know what on my mattress kinda creeps me out. Guess I'd need a storage unit with rental furniture to swap out during those times as well.

A mountain house with a pool, looking down at a beach.

Also, with enough tree clearance, and a pool cleaning robot that doubles as a high-pressure fire sprinkler.

Definitely not the beach house. I'm kinda torn between the other two. Pools are a ton of maintenance time and/or cost. I could heat a pool, but I can't swim in a hottub. Short term, mountains could be cut off or impassable in (probably much longer than at lower elevations) winter. Long term, it might be the better pick for climate change, but not if there's no community around it.