Mansionmania Tournament: Round 2, Heat 15
 

Mansionmania continues with our 32 2nd-round contestants. You will choose among each pair of houses with the following assumptions:

• The purchase price for you is $0.
• All maintenance, utilities, property taxes, HOA fees, and cleaning is included.
• You must live in the home for the rest of your life.
• You can't travel more than 100 miles from home (via google maps drive time) other than 1 two-week vacation each year.
• You get $250,000 per year as a living allowance
• You get an additional living allowance at the cheaper home, which will be valued at 1% of any cost difference annually. I will note this amount in the poll.
• You get the furnishings. If unfurnished, you get an allowance that will give you mid-grade furniture in every room.
• You get any vehicles in the garage. But only the garage - nothing parked outside.

I encourage you to click on the maps in the listings to see the general location and neighborhood.

Also, I will only enter contestants if they have a sufficient number of photos to judge, as determined by me.

Your entries in this heat are:

Hawaii:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...0_M91907-82962

Wisconsin:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...7_M83682-42135

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that Wisconsin house (minus a little update on the interior decorating), but it has zero chance against a Hawaiian house on a point on the big island, much less one as nice as that one.

The only problem with Hawaii is that you're stuck there on the big island for 50 weeks a year. The WI home is only 83 miles from Chicago (not 106 and driving at night with sunglasses). Tough choice, but I'm going to go WI.

This one's a toughie, even though first impressions might say otherwise.

The Hawaii house if fantastic, but it's actually a compound for 4 houses. At a total of 8,900 square feet, I suspect that maybe you've got one 5,000 square foot main house and three guest houses that are under 1,500 square feet. That's great and I could make it work, but I'd rather just have one big mansion. The swimming pool is also too small to be useful to me, which stinks. You can actually reach Hilo and most or all of Maui, so it's a good location, and the weather is of course going to be nice. But as others have said, I'm starting to worry if I'd go crazy living in constant warm weather. I do like seasons.

I like the Wisconsin house. I'd probably make some decorating changes, but there's nothing major. I can reach Chicago and Milwaukee and Madison, so there's lot of urban stuff to explore. And my stipend is a little bigger, even though it's not a game-changing amount.

I'm going to go against the first glance and pick Wisconsin. I like having my mansion all under one roof.

I like the Big Island. Have a college buddy who lives just up the road from there.

Hawaii it is.

Can you VRBO or lease out the additional homes on the Hawaiian property?

Just looking at those pics of the Wisconsin home was low key depressing. I just don't do well with winter/fall up North any more. Dead leaves, dead grass, everything is brown. Snow and cold weather.

Why deal with that when I could have beautiful green everywhere with mild temps year round and the ocean at my doorstep?

It would depend on the zoning and how much you're bothered by the neighbors thinking you're a peasant.

I'd bet that leasing isn't allowed as a general thought. But you could probably VRBO them. And that, my friends, is why we have an affordable housing issue in this country.

i'm torn on this one, but am opting for Wisconsin. I think I almost have the accent down.

Being within 100 miles of Chicago isn't that big of a selling point these days.

Hawaii is perfect.

This is not a hard decision. Paradise or living outside Chicago?

Costco is 23 miles away in Hawaii.

I'm good to go

Funny you say that. Before COVID the wife and I vacationed in St. Johns, USVI every other summer. I got to know one of the part owners of Virgin Island Brewers and this subject came up. He was getting ready for the tourist season to end and was going to the states for a couple of months. He then stated that some people don't understand why he would want to leave for such a long time but the best part was when he said "There's a reason they wanted off Gilligan's Island." With that said I am going with HI. Frankly with the 100 mile travel limit you may as well be on an island no matter which house you choose.

Hawaii for me, but that WI place is very nice.

Hawaii is just too tough to pass up.