Some weeks are harder than others. Some weeks you take more deep breaths and remind yourself more often to count your blessings.
This week was one of them.
We would like to move. Very much. When we bought this house it was supposed to be so temporary. I certainly never saw us in the house for seven years. But we bought in the summer of 2007. If you did this, or know anybody who did this, you understand the situation we are in.
Even after 7 years of payments, we cannot sell it (and cover realtor fees) for what we still owe on it. I think the house would sell quickly once we decide to sell it. It is small, but we have a very nice neighborhood. We have taken good care of it and made some nice updates. The carpet is in need of replacement, but this isn't a huge expense because it is probably only about 900 square feet to carpet.
We have seen several houses that we like, and have just about saved a the bare minimum of a down payment to make an offer. We've looked at all the factors--taxes, down payment, PMI (which we don't currently pay) and think a monthly payment is within reach.
Sometimes life seems so unnecessarily complicated. We just want to be making a payment we can afford in a more comfortable house. But choices we made 7 years ago, with no way of predicting the future, are keeping us from being able to do this simple thing.
Within a year we will be even on this house. But prices and interest rates are going up, and houses we can afford now could very well be out of reach a year from now.
Did you buy a house in 2007? Have you bought one since? How did you mange?
It is hard to be looking at the downhill slope to age 40, having owned two homes, and not even have a dollar of equity to show for it. And I'm trying very hard not to think of my younger sister who had equity in a condo when they walked away from college and managed to sell a home right in the middle of the recession for her asking price and will have her beautiful McMansion paid for in about 12 years.
Count your many blessings . . . name them one by one . . . count your many blessings, see what God has done . . . count your blessings . . . name them one by one . . .
My mantra today.
3 comments:
Boo, I'm sorry about crummy timing. Eric's brother bought a home in a beach town in North Carolina in 2006 (or so). They've moved to the middle of the continent since then - in about 2010 - and they still haven't sold their NC home.
Can you buy a new house and rent yours out? Is that a feasible option? (I'm sure you've considered it and I'm not bringing anything new to the table here.)
This. This is us. My husband bought our current townhouse in 2007 (give or take a year or two). Married, two kids later, and feeling like we desperately need to leave the area......we still can't sell it for what we owe. We are looking at 5 more years. Yuck. It makes me ill.
All comments welcome! We have looked at renting, but since we borrowed 95% of the cost of the house, our payment is pretty high and we can lock in our arm and we can't charge enough per month to keep it as a rental. With 7 years of payments under our belts and wanting to stay in the area, renting would be great. If we could lock in without that pesky PMI!
We are going to see if the owners of the house we like might consider a rent to own . . .
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