We live in North Carolina (USA) and we have owned our current home for 3 years. We owe 180k on a house we purchased for 190k, and the current zestimate is about 270k. I know to take that with a grain of salt generally, but I've been watching other listings in our neighborhood and have relevant comps for very similar layout and square footage that have sold for more than that amount in the past six months. I went to the open house for a comp one street over last fall and the house was a mirror of our layout, with very similar finishes inside (granite counters, wood floors, etc). It sold for $280k. Our house has a much larger and nicer lot and an attached garage as well so I think it's very realistic for us to think we could sell in that same range.
Based on various things going on economically and politically I feel we are very likely headed into another serious recession. It feels like this is an opportunity to cash out and just rent for a while and see how things go. Maybe relocate to Texas, or maybe wait for a real downturn and purchase a less expensive property in our current region.
Other factors - my job is remote, I can do it from anywhere. All our benefits are through my job as well. My husband is self-employed and his work is fairly portable. We don't have any debt other than our mortgage. Our cars are under 10 years old and well maintained. We have two children in middle school who are pretty adaptable to things and not particularly attached to where they go to school currently. The schools where we live have some issues and we could hardly do worse by moving -- in fact we could potentially do much better.
I brought this up with my husband and he thinks it's bananas, but that's his reaction to basically anything until he has had time to warm up to an idea. I am the planner in our family, and I handle all our finances. I organized our last two moves and both times he was not really on board but we did it anyway, and after the fact he thought it was fantastic and was really grateful that I had made things happen.
His concerns, which I share to a degree, are:
- It's tremendously disruptive to pack up and move our household -- whether it's across town or to another state (4-bedroom, 2100 sf house). There would be substantial costs (moving, realtor fees) eating into the possible $90k profit.
- It's maybe killing the goose that lay the golden egg, a bit? We're very well-positioned both in our neighborhood and in our region, which was the whole reason for moving here 3 years ago. We lucked out to buy this house about a hot minute before the market suddenly soared. If we cash out and there isn't any crash, we still have to pay to live somewhere and may be worse off by then. It's a gamble.
If we were to do this, we should be getting started right now on getting ready to list in spring. We'd need to move a lot of things to storage, do some touch-up painting, and work on the landscaping a bit.
Is it crazy?
Submitted January 16, 2019 at 01:00PM by bluetwack http://bit.ly/2RVgKLK
