I'll start with the TL;DR - I'm being told I should prob sell my inherited aging house in order to accomplish my goal of going to grad school and switching careers. I'm tired of owning this house, but I'm afraid I'll never be able to buy another house if I do sell. I'm having a hard time picturing how having $300-400k and no home is better than having a home + being able to sell it for a at least twice that much when I retire. Help!
Here's the long version: I inherited my childhood home twelve years and it has saved my ass during some really tough financial and emotional times. I was in my mid 20's and had no business being a homeowner, but now I mostly have a handle on it. I always imagined using it for rental income and then selling it when I retire, but my husband and our financial planner both think it's obvious we should sell it.
I'm pretty risk averse and very suspicious of financial advice after seeing my family turn into greed monsters when my dad died. It makes me suspicious that the financial planner hasn't adequately explained how having a large chunk of cash now is better than potentially having a house worth close to a million bucks when I retire.
I will admit that the house is starting to need expensive repairs and I think I'd rather spend money on grad school and switching careers than repairing the roof and foundation and whatnot. I definitely can't do ALL of that without going into a lot of debt. Debt scares me.
I live in Austin and I could prob sell the house for around $440k right now (it's fully paid off), but I would probably never be able to afford a house in Austin proper or any non-suburb ever again. That obviously freaks me out. I'm pretty sure I'm done with Austin, but I don't know where I want to go. It feels dumb to sell without a real plan. But maybe the plan won't come till I sell?
My biggest worry is that I'll never be able to buy another house period unless I pay cash. I've never had large loans in my adult life and have only recently gotten my credit into the good range, so getting approved for a loan is a foreign concept to me. My husband and I both work in the film industry and I've heard it's really hard for people in the industry to get loans because we switch jobs so often and have long periods of unemployment between gigs. Not sure if it matters but our annual take home after taxes is around $100k and my credit score is 717. I would love any insight you guys have about this situation! Thanks!
Submitted May 31, 2021 at 11:19PM by MeowpyPurrfday https://ift.tt/2SFt4Su
