Letting the house go: Am I making the right decision?
Filed under: Home
In my last post, I wrote about the hassles of refinancing. It's been a while since I've updated everyone, and I apologize for that, but I've just been dwelling on what to do.The wife and I sat down and talked about everything. About how we got into the position we are in and how to get out of it. Basically what it came down to is that we jumped into the "home-owners" market too quick. We got sucked in by the allure of owning our own home. We didn't realize all the side effects of owning a home; the maintenance, the upgrades, and most importantly, actually paying for it.
I received a lot of very helpful comments. My short Walletpop career has been jammed with more information than I have read in the past few months. The help and the tips I have received have been great, and have steered me in the right direction.We made a decision that was so hard to make. Some of the people we have talked to judged us and ridiculed us. Others understood where we are coming from. Needless to say, our family understands what we are trying to do and they back us.
We've decided to sell the house. We plan on moving in a few years, hopefully to Phoenix, maybe closer. Our credit isn't great, heck, it's not even average at the moment and we would not get approved for another loan with our current credit situation.
After we sell the house we will find a nice place to rent. Our current mortgage payment is about $800 a month but we figure we can get a nice place for half that. We would use the difference between our old mortgage and our new rent to pay off and repair our credit -- Hopefully building our credit score to secure us a home loan with a great interest rate in the future.
It's cheaper to rent for us right now, and as one of the great bloggers here at Walletpop said, whenever something breaks all you have to do is call someone!
I've received so much help from you all so far, I'm curious to see what you all have to say about this.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-18-2008 @ 2:19PM
Real Truth said...
Good decision. I hope I helped.
Reply
3-18-2008 @ 3:16PM
Erwos said...
My only question is, what was your debt-to-income ratio? For example, if you made $100,000 a year, but owed $250,000, that would be a debt-to-income ratio of 2.5.
Stories like yours make me very nervous. My wife and I are looking for a house, and while we're being very conservative in what we can afford (the realtor thinks we're nuts, I suspect), the idea of some catastrophe or another hurting us is something we really worry about. So, definitely, my sympathies to you and your family, and you have my respect for meeting your obligations in an honorable way. There's no shame in renting (we're doing it now!).
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3-28-2008 @ 8:53PM
Abelicio Padilla said...
I've read different ways on figuring debt to income ratios. If you don't include the mortgage payment our ratio is about 30%...which is ridiculous.
Stories like mine do make a lot of people nervous. And in fact scare a lot of people. I don't think that buying a house is the wrong decision, I just think it was the wrong decision for us AT THE TIME.
If we follow what I have planned based on the advice given to me by lots of people, I can eliminate about $34,000 worth of debt in about 3 years. I say about because I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. Couple that with rebuilding our credit and we would be in MUCH better shape to be home owners, and by then hopefully the market will be better...
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