Help me think through my rental situation
Would appreciate some perspective as the people in my life I'd normally turn to for general advice have very different financial circumstances than me. I'm moving to a MCOL housing area (feels like low cost after Bay Area).
HHI is roughly 600k before taxes. Income is California sourced so I'm going to be paying California taxes no matter where I live.
I've got 4 kids (7,5,3, and 1). Wife works part-time from home. We both have the same financial mindset. Net worth is roughly 800k right now with half of that in retirement funds (HHI has only gone up to this level in the last two years).
We're looking to rent. Buying is off the table currently. Ideally this is where we're going to live the rest of our lives but we've moved around too many times to be certain. Due to reasons beyond scope of this post, if/when we do buy, it's going to be fully in cash or at least close to it (would finance max 300-400k).
Initially we were looking at 3k square foot houses that were roughly in the 3k/month range. Except that's only giving us generic, cookie-cutter, beige, housing. I think we'd be fine living in such a house temporarily but we would never buy a house like the ones we're seeing available for rent. I'm talking the absolute stereotype of suburban cookie cutter design.
We stumbled on a house that's renting for 5.5k that's genuinely nice. Not an ideal house by any means but 5k square feet, nice interior, nice layout.
My question is: does it make sense to pay the 2.5k/month premium for a house that's nicer to live in? I'd estimate we'd be living here for 3-5 years minimum (maybe longer, if we decide it's not yet time to buy). Does 30k/year extra in housing make sense for a house that's meaningfully nicer to live in? Both my wife and I work from home, so the house is also the workplace.