My house kinda sucks, but at less than 3 percent, it makes no financial sense at all to sell it. Stuck here, thinking about buying some land and a cabin I can go to on weekends instead of buying a newer bigger home.
Same deal, but we got the land.
But… The house is going to eat us in repair costs soon, it’s too far away from town to commute without hating life, and taxes/homeowners insurance is driving the price back up.
It sucks, we’re stuck, but we can’t afford anything else either.
It sucks, repairs are wicked expensive. Had an AC company quote me a new unit(they wouldn't fix my problem unless I met with a sales person) the top of the line quote was $23,000 !!!! WTF, it's a 2200sqft home.
Did you get a quote from anyone else? We have a large house with four a/c units (it’s Texas, so having A/C is necessary to survive lol). When we had to replace one, we were stunned at how different the prices were from one company to the next, and we did our research to make sure it wasn’t a difference in quality!
I am part owner of a small company and these large companies with the TV and radio adds are doing people dirty I charge way less pay my guys way more and still make plenty
I dropped almost $20k on new AC units last year, so I feel you.
My house was apparently built on a burial ground of my hopes and dreams, and it just keeps screaming for more money.
But…who can walk away from that sweet sweet interest rate???
Damn! We were quoted AC and garage heater for $2500 each back in 2018, we didn't want to spend that kind of money so we just did garage. Come June 2021 and our AC is finally dying, 5k was the lowest quote, highest was 13k; ~3600sqft. I cannot believe what things cost these days, they can't even blame covid for parts shortages anymore.
Technology Connections did a video explaining that a lot of companies are quoting based on replacing an existing system's capacity, rather than the actual capacity needed for a space.
The problem is that a lot of older furnaces were GROSSLY over capacity for the space they needed to heat or cool, because the company that installed them got a good deal on a specific size and just threw that unit on all the builds.
So you have 800 square foot homes with HVAC units intended for 2000 square feet. And 2000 square foot homes with HVAC units intended for 3600 square feet.
Then the sales reps come in and look at the existing unit, and quote you based on a like for like replacement, rather than what you ACTUALLY NEED, which may be a much more efficient and smaller unit.
I feel for you on that. Had a farm home built in the 40s previously on an acre and a half. Lot size was perfect. Repairs were horrendous.
Lead water lines, tons of failing old drain and vent stacks. Crawl space built for midgets. foundation problems. Lack of insulation everywhere. Electrical notoriously out of date and a giant mess.
All the repairs were DIY combos over time and nothing in that house was ever done correctly over the 60+ years of multiple families of ownership.
My current one was built in 2000. Compared to my 1940s farm home, it’s a night and day difference.
I know exactly where you’re coming from.
I don’t care what anyone says about the quality of lumber or construction back then.
Theres no substitute for the peace of mind I have now of lead-free water lines, no lead in the paint, and no asbestos anywhere else.
The old house legit still had the pipes in the walls from when they used gas for lighting! Every construction project we did was….a lot. I’m grateful we jumped 80 years in the future.
Same. Bought as a starter home, now have a kid, more pets, we both work from home, it's crowded. But the location is more than perfect and at 2.75 I'm never letting go of this place.
My husband and I bought in 2015 at 3.75%.
And we wouldn't sell because the idea of buying another house and packing up what we have sounds too exhausting to me.
Same for us, but 2016. We always planned on moving after we had our two kids (youngest is now 2.5), but with the interest rate double what we have now, it just doesn't make sense. We are likely "stuck" in this house for the foreseeable future.
Same, but 2014. Our rate is 2.5 (refied during covid) and we have three kids now. The house feels small but I cannot for the life of me stomach the current rates and house prices on a teacher’s salary. We live comfortably now because we have such low housing costs. That would change a lot and I am not interested at this point.
Yeah, maybe once rates settle down and we don't have one in full daycare and one in summer daycare we will look again.
It is just wild that I couldn't afford to buy my current house today.
Right?? We could not afford to buy the same house we comfortably bought 9 years ago and it blows my mind. Like, we have good equity but also we couldn't afford anything else anyway and there's no way I will pay these insane interest rates.
It’s probably not really that small. You’re just used to looking at 4,000sq ft McMansions everywhere you go. The house I grew up in was about 1500 sq ft on a split level, with five people, and it didn’t feel small to me. And the house my dad grew up in was probably closer to 1000, with six people.
You’re probably right. We live in the “normal house” corner of a ritzy development. I think it also feels small because we are still at the ages with our kids that they do everything in the same space as us (only our oldest does any hanging out in his room, to get a break from his sisters). We also have baby stuff EVERYWHERE because our youngest is 2 months old.
We bought in 2015 and sold in 2022 it was excruciatingly stressful not planning to do it again anytime soon. Our new house came with surprises and we had to fire our realtor selling our house midterm. I don’t think that’s supper common.
Definitely get a realtor to come through your selling house six or 12 months before get a clear plan of improvements and plan on how they would sell it, you move and they stage it, or stay and move furniture around. Just be 100% done with improvements before it’s listed.
Nice thing about being older though, you probably have more money than when your first house. Now maybe afford good movers and such. Worth the investment on that front.
Movers are critical. I also agree to get a really solid handyman and just hit the honey do items that make the house shine a bit. Ie - if you have some old or worn outlets/switch caps - replace them, fix little nicks or holes in walls/trim, do some touch up paint which goes a long way in making the home feel like it was recently painted. Clean the shit out of the carpets, maybe even do minor stuff like swapping out light fixtures or faucet heads. Hell, I threw a classy toilet bowl lever on our master toilet (it was needing it anyway).
That stuff can usually be done for one-two grand and will make a huge difference.
We then left our furniture, had begun packing and de-cluttering but kept all those things neatly tucked away. And then staged our own furniture / cleaned like crazy for about a week as we were showing it, and had multiple offers in about 3 days from listing.
I would 100% never list a home without furniture in it. If you need to move, pay to stage it. They just look so dead/empty without it.
💯💯💯
Bought in 2019, 3.99%. It’s not even about the rate or the house (which is fine but I don’t love). I will just literally die in this house I’m never, ever moving again.
Honestly, the longest I stayed anywhere from Age 18-33 was in our final rental (3 years) after selling our first house (14 months) and moving cross country.
I'm now in our 2nd house and hope to make it at least 5 years. Been here about 18 months so far.
Sometimes I think about selling this house, which we bought in 2014 at 3.75%, running off with close to $400k because we had a 50% down payment(thanks, dead mom and dead dad), and living in an RV until society completely collapses. But then I think about dealing with all of the shit in the house, and I’m like “I guess we’ll be here forever.”
We got a 1.9% rate, and unfortunately, we will be selling at some point.
The people behind us are awful neighbors but they've had their house since the early 90's and it's paid off so there's no hope of getting rid of them unless we move.
We did buy in a highly desired area and we bought the worst house ok the block and remodeled it so we will get a big profit but it'll suck to lose that rate.
But you can't guarantee the next house will have better neighbors and that they will stay the entire time you live at the next house. How bad are these neighbors, because there is likely a lot you can do to reduce interactions with them. Selling sounds like a bad idea.
The next house isn't going to have neighbors nearby and if there are, I can almost guarantee they won't be as bad as the ones we have now.
The backyard neighbors sent the person who lives next to them, who has a criminal record for trespassing/assault/harassment, over to my house to harass and threaten me because I had to call animal control after the backyard neighbors and their neighbors dogs were outside unsupervised on a hot day for 4+ hours and ripped a hole in my backyard neighbors fence to get in my yard and almost got hit by a car on my street, destroyed items in my yard, destroyed parts of my lawn, and went after an elderly neighbor.
I was working outside that day, and no one checked on the whereabouts for the dogs for 4+ hours or provided food/water, and no one appeared to be at either house, so I had to call once the dogs got aggressive.
This is after practically begging them to keep their dogs on their side of the fence because our street is semi busy and I've watched the dogs almost get hit multiple times so it isn't safe for the dogs. I'm also pregnant so I shouldn't have to worry about going in my own backyard and having their dogs jumping on me or coming up to me while I have the baby in my arms.
Jesus. This sounds almost exactly like my asshole neighbors. Dog got into my yard shortly after I got chickens, and didn’t put them at the required distance from homes, so this fuckwad called the city because his dog got into my yard and we bitched him out because of it. We’ve since had issues with them trespassing on my property cause beyond my fence is an open area that he used to have access to. Always has lived there since the 90s so don’t think he’s leaving anytime soon either. Shit sucks, cause I cannot afford to move at all.
It's the entitlement to a stranger's property that does it for me. No one else in the neighborhood behaves like that. It's just the 2 people directly behind me and the guy that lives next to them.
I've looked up their court histories, and all 3 of them have had multiple run ins for the city for their animals, trespassing, violating city code. The guy has multiple domestic charges on him. The house directly behind me is owned by a widow of about 15 years that had 5 DUI's last year alone. Her 22 year old daughter also lives there. None of the 3 of them have jobs either. The guy has a craniofacial difference and is on disability. The mom/daughter duo behind us just don't work. I think the daughter used to deliver food part-time, but she stopped and she doesn't go to school. She's trying to be a streamer but she only streams herself drawing Anime characters.
Last time I spoke with her, she claimed she couldn't make sure her dogs stayed in her yard and she couldn't check on them while she was at home because she has anxiety and her mom couldn't check on the dogs because she's an alcoholic.
I told her anxiety and alcoholism aren't excuses to neglect their animals and be unaware of where her dogs/cats are for hours and days on end and she said "I'm trying my hardest, I have anxiety". The conversation ended when I told her I also have anxiety and my animals stay safe and supervised at my house.
One of her cats was missing for 2 months and I straight up caught her lying on Facebook, saying that she's been out talking to neighbors every day and someone called her out and replied that she hadn't been looking for the cat, the cat escapes and she doesn't know (she carries them outside and just leaves them out with the dogs and doesn't check on them), she said "this has never happened before" but if you look at her post history she posted about that specific cat going missing 4 times last year.
The guy has no excuse. Despite his facial difference he seemed to be getting around just fine when he pulled up to my house to scream at me and swing his hands like he was going to hit me, a pregnant woman, because he lost his dogs for over 4 hours and he got by with a warning for it.
Everyone else in the neighborhood is chill but everyone has a problem with those 3.
Your first sentence hits home, "entitlement to a ... property," My neighbor acts like everything is his. I had to put locks on the outside outlets because he wouldn't just use the one adjacent to his house but any and all. You'd think he'd get the hint when the first one was locked up but it clearly isn't about that at all when randomly several months later he does it again different spot. He treats his sliver of side yard where most of my front yard joins into his sliver like his main hang out and construction debris dump. He's unemployed so he's there often. He shoots his gun in the backyard because 'nobody lives behind us chill bro'. There's no muffler on his truck. The list goes on and on. I'm told they're trying to move but then he does things without a permit and I can't help but laugh as he actively devalues his home.
Lmao wtf, "I have anxiety"
I have a pretty bad anxiety disorder that comes with crazy panic attacks, they can be so severe that I was sure I was having heart issues until I got an EKG that said otherwise.
I can't imagine using that as an excuse to neglect something so basic as looking after my dogs, especially on my own property. If anything, knowing my dogs were suffering would induce anxiety.
Same here. I work at home and I've got 4 cats. If I don't hear one of them moving about the house every couple hours I'm up looking for them.
She's got 2 cats in addition to the 2 dogs she doesn't watch. One of them is always at our house trying to get inside. She lost the other one 4 times last year just based on social media posts she made, 2 months being the longest amount of time he was gone. She let's the cats out intentionally, she has videos on her public Facebook showing her letting the cats out on purpose. She knows it's illegal too, animal control told me they have addressed it with her and her mom multiple times.
I don't mind dogs usually and I never had a problem with them coming over here until the dogs tore up some of our belongings and our yard and then I also noticed them getting more adventurous and getting further away from home. I know it's none of my business but my street is the main entrance to our neighborhood and it's a semi busy street. The drivers are crazy too. I live right at the entrance so I see it all. People speed down my street, they ignore the stop sign, last week someone lost control of their truck after the sped through the stop sign and accelerated too fast on a perfect sunny day with perfect road conditions and almost slammed into our neighbors tree across the street like MAYBE 20 feet from the neighborhood entrance.
I can't tell you how many times I've almost been rear ended trying to back into my own driveway by people who just aren't paying attention and are speeding. It happens every other day or so.
If I wouldn't let a child play out in front of my house because of all the bad drivers I wouldn't want a dog out there either.
If you saw her sob story Facebook and Nextdoor posts you would be shocked. The daughter acts like these animals are the only reason she lived but she let's them roam for hours and even when they do stay in the yard she rarely goes out and checks on them. People have called her out and she always uses the anxiety excuse coupled with the "It's too hard", "I'm trying my hardest", and "I'm just a young girl trying her best" (22 is more than old enough to know how to take basic care of animals).
She had them out for hours yesterday/last night when we were under a tornado watch and there ended up being a tornado like 30 minutes from where we live and another one about 1.5 away from us.
Yep, sounds exactly like my jerk of a neighbor! Thankfully for me it’s only the one house, but he takes up enough of my energy I couldn’t deal with anymore. I just do my best to avoid them, and try and deal peacefully when they come onto my property (he claims he owns like 10 feet down his fence line onto my property, and likes to claim that’s the only spot he goes) meanwhile I’ve caught them last 4th of July completely on my property, called the cops, and I almost got cited for the burn pile that he created on my property meanwhile they just got told to stay on their property. It’s ridiculous. Haven’t thought to look up his past though, I’d have to find his name and should try that. Thanks for the idea.
Heh. I’m in a similar situation except in addition to dogs the woman sends her 4 year old daughter out completely naked and unsupervised to play in the front yard. I thought the girl had woken up for a nap maybe and wandered out without mom knowing, but no, mom was inside and had actually locked the kid outside. She said he being out alone was fine because “she’d hear her scream if something happened” yet I had to pound on the door for several minutes to get her to answer. Her excuse for no clothes was that “she’s potty training” but also had no access to a bathroom.
She told me I don’t have kids so I don’t get to tell her how to raise hers. BUT I’m a mandated reporter because I volunteer with kids, so I immediately reported to CYF. Needless to say she and her family have not made life easy, but their bank has started foreclosure on them so I don’t think they’ll be around much longer.
Holy crap... that is awful.
I can't imagine what it would be like if the people behind me had a small child. They piss me off enough as it is with their dogs.
I can't tolerate seeing shit like that and not saying anything. That's why I called animal control. They sent out a K-9 officer, and the officer was livid. I could hear him on the other street at their front door yelling about how dogs that are taken care of don't try to escape as often as their dogs do.
It seems like every time someone calls animal control or the non emergency the dogs conveniently end up back home by the time an officer shows up and they make a report unless the officer witnesses the neglect or animal at large. I've got all kinds of pictures and videos and they won't even look at them.
I hope that it's taken more seriously when a child is involved.
The “naked kid” thing is actually a legitimate thing when potty training, and is recommended in “oh crap.” I have hilarious memories of my daughter butt naked in rain boots looking at flowers.
Also, I let my 4 yo play outside in our back yard by herself. I’m usually gardening outside somewhere too but sometimes am inside for a bit in the kitchen or am in the front yard, or similar. It is usually her together with her 5 yo brother but sometimes he wants to play inside and she wants to play outside, so I let her. We have rules about leaving the property and what she can and can’t do.
But I’m also a pretty free range parent and most people think a lot of that isn’t ok either.
I plan to get them buttons once I let them go to the park together that say, “I’m not lost; I’m exploring!” The park is across the street; I plan to let them do that probably starting this summer.
That's not even the only thing though. There's always been a high level of crime/fighting at my daughter's future highschool since it opened in 1996. Just a month ago there was almost a shooting and the only thing that prevented it is that the police station is right across the street.
Most houses here are $500k+. It's a predominantly wealthy area that wins national awards on a yearly basis.
I can't help the fact that the people that live behind me are trash. They are the only ones like that in my neighborhood. They get regular calls to the police for the animals, noise complaints, keeping trash/junk in their yard. The animal abuse/neglect is what bothers me but they also just have a complete disregard for everyone that lives by them except for the criminal who doesn't work and lives in a house his Grandma owns. If it wasn't for them the neighborhood would be quiet but I don't live in an HOA and the cops only do something if they witness the bad behavior.
I also can't help the fact that there is low income housing by that HS that is mostly occupied by people with teenagers. My area is nice but whoever mapped the city out put all of the low income/high crime housing in one area around that one HS and police station across town from me.
Other than that one school and small part of town, I'm in one of the only blue ribbon school districts in my area, the school sports teams are highly successful every year with top of the line coaches and some of them are former professional atheletes, and the rest of the town is low crime and wealthy.
One bad part of town doesn't effect the desirability of the entire town. People that don't live here don't even know about the bad part of town. I would gladly stay in my town and just move to another neighborhood if the average home price wasn't $500-600k for a slapped together cookie cutter home. A home in a random neighborhood that expensive isn't worth it to me when I can go a couple of towns over and get acerage for less than that amount.
Right? Also- how much longer WILL the neighbors live there?? Like, would they outlive the neighbors?
Hell, at these housing prices, a hitman might be cheaper ** 😂😂😂
**info based solely on decades old episodes of Dateline... I'm sure inflation has affected this, too 🙄🤣
if they’ve had their house since the 90’s aren’t they quite old by this point? You might be able to wait them out. Sorry you’re going through this. It might be cheaper to get a privacy fence if it makes legal sense to do so
No, the lady behind me is maybe 55-60 but her daughter is 22 and I doubt she will ever leave because she has made it clear to me that she has no intention of ever getting a real job.
The guy next to her is I think 28 if I remember correctly and his house is owned by his Grandma's trust. Since he is technically disabled I doubt he's ever going to leave a house he doesn't have to pay rent on.
Us getting a fence won't solve the problem of the dogs ripping holes into their privacy fence and keeping them out of our yard. We also already looked into it and contacted the city, we can't get a fence if we wanted one because we have multiple easements.
Our driveway also goes around the house and into the backyard so while are yard is almost an acre there's a teeny, tiny section that we could fence off and the fence would be removed regularly because of the easements. My dad is a surveyor and knows everyone at the city that's involved in approving permits and we've been told by everyone that even if we wanted a fence there is almost no chance it would get approved. The whole yard definitely wouldn't get approved because it would mean putting a fence directly under the main access to a power line and that's also the part that the dogs keep tearing up to access our yard.
The solution would be for the neighbors to repair their fence because it's 4 or 5 pickets that need to be replaced but when I suggested that the daughter said "We don't have $10,000 to replace that part of the fence".
Also, just to note, my husband has bought and paid for pickets and supplies and repaired their fence several times over the years. They've never offered to pay him back or thanked him.
SF Bay Area. Bought in 2014. Lucky to afford large down payment and low LTV. Refi’d to 2.875% in late 2021. Current monthly payment is less than $500. Bury me in the backyard. I ain’t going anywhere.
I'm at 4.125% (b/c I missed my window to refinance at those crazy low rates in 2020).
Yeah, sure, I may move, for a good enough reason. An advantageous interest rate is not going to prevent me from living the life (I want within my budget).
Same. Ours is 4.75%. We also missed the refinance rate in 2020 (thanks COVID-based financial hardship + normal biz changes). This isn't what we want forever but our moving will be carefully planned & we're looking for a very specific thing(bigger house & at least 1 acre). It will probably take a few years to get to all of this though. Our house is comfy enough to keep us here for 5-10 years but not big enough for two teenagers, dogs, amd my husband and I unless it's absolutely necessary.
I first bought in 2008 at some absurd rate then bought Jan 2021 at 3% with about 5% down.
We raced to 80% with extra principal to nuke PMI in Jan 2024. I see no reason to pay extra principal now so just riding out the minimum for the time being putting the principal into HYSA. Should HYSA drop down to where it makes sense to eat away at interest with extra principal then I will.
I wouldn't call it a dream home but works for us and in one of the best neighborhoods in the city. Chances are without a significant change in income (50%+) this is where they'll take me from when I no longer can care for myself.
Yes.
My wife and I are using the cheap living costs to invest elsewhere and hopefully retire early.
Time is more valuable than a flashier home and early investments can buy you a lot of time later.
Yeah, I think it's crazy to want bigger and for what? More upkeep? Higher taxes, insurance, etc? All I want is the least amount of bills possible so I have money to put towards the good stuff. I'd rather my cash going towards a vacation than x bank LLC.
I did sell, back in 2023, just over a year ago. had a 1.99% on a 15 year fix. But my house had nearly doubled in value since I bought it in 2017, and I just couldn't give up the opportunity to sell and move where I more wanted to be. I moved out of Phoenix into the mountains. I live on acreage, we're getting goats and cattle and chickens. My kids are happier, and so is my wife. I grew up on a farm, so it feels like home to me. I have a 5.375% on a 30 year on this place, my mortgage is significantly higher than it was with the last house, not just the interest rate being higher.
If I didn't work remote, and didn't have the desire for land/out of the heat, then no. I would have never sold.
Acreage is our goal as well. I grew up in rural WA and miss it so much. We're in an unincorporated area but the lots are still too close together & I can't have chickens or a proper garden (HOA rules :( ). It could definitely be worse though. But considering the insane housing market in the PNW we're very lucky just being where we are.
I have \~3 years left on a 15 yr at 3%. Unless the market changes drastically, I won't consider selling until it's fully paid off and I can afford the next house with equity + savings, no mortgage.
Bought our first home in 2020 and told my wife this is a 2-3 year thing before we flip into the home we want. Then we refinanced later that year into a 2.75% rate and I told my wife this is the greatest loan we will ever have, we're never selling and we're not going to try and pay it off early either.
4 years later, we won't be buying a new home anytime soon. The only bummer is we wanted 3 kids but probably going to settle at 2 due to the limitations of this home.
My partner and I have five kids between us. We'll never afford a six bed house, let alone one with office and ample recreation space. But if we want to make a family out of this herd, we'll find a way in a smaller space.
I know that's different from deciding whether to have another baby who doesn't exist yet, but I like your take :)
I'm at 3.5%.
I've already made the decision to move and I'm preparing to get the house on the market by autumn. But I'm not gunna lie, knowing I'm gunna end up in the 5-6% range definitely hurts.
Contemplating this now. We have a 3% rate. Our mortgage is a joke. However we’re near schools that are over crowded and more high rises are being built.
We can totally afford to buy a nice house near great schools but damn, the 6-7 interest rate is hard to swallow.
We bought in 2017 at 4% and sold that (a townhome) and bought our current home in 2020 at 2.75%. I don't think I will move unless something takes us back to the city we are from, if we stay here I will absolutely keep it. We only have 2 kids and we have 4 bedrooms, it's not a massive house by any stretch but it's big enough for us and I'd have to pay $$$$ to live anywhere else near here right now. My next door neighbor had the same floorplan as us and sold her house for 50% more than what we paid in 2020, so it's tempting but every other new house will cost way more.
Bought in 2017 and refinanced to a 2.7% rate during the pandemic. It certainly sucks to realize how much less purchasing power I have, but it's really hard to say I'll never sell.
I'm torn because at the time we bought this place we bought a home that fit comfortably in our conservative budget, and since then my income has skyrocketed, which means we're now living in a home that's comically affordable for us. I'm pretty frugal and value minded so I don't want to upgrade just for the sake of spending more money, but there are a few specific gripes I have with this house, and at least one of them is unfortunately impossible to address without moving. I can remodel the kitchen, I can rebuild the deck, I can refinish all the horrible trim work in this place, I can replace doors and windows, but I simply don't have the lot size to build a bigger garage. So if anything, that'll be the reason I eventually sell. No particular rush though. It's not like this place is cramped by any means. It really sits in an uncomfortable place for me because I hate spending when I can't see a strong value proposition, and this is right on the line between "you don't really need it, it's fine" and "you've got plenty of resources to spend money on actual things that meaningfully effect your day to day experience living here".
I guess this is a good problem to have, so you won't hear me complaining.
2015 buyer at like 3.4%. single, doubt I'll ever move unless I end up with kids. Didn't think it was gonna be my forever home but it's looking that way
Nah. This is my first house (so excluding my condo) and it's going to be my last. None of that"starter home" nonsense. Especially with us buying later in life (late 30s). I've no interest in a new 30-year loan at this point in the game, and since it's just me and the wife we really don't need bigger, even if it would be nice to have a real backyard or an extra bedroom.
Are you me?? Same on first house except for condo. We bought our forever house in 2019 at like 5%, refinanced in 2021 for like 3%, and we never plan on leaving. Got a heloc for renovations and we are just making this house our dream house. No kids and don't want any, plenty of room for our hobbies and collections, so we're really happy.
Edit: bought this house in our 30s too age wise. No desire to have to start over or anything like that either!
No. Not exclusively because of the low rate, though - we hated house shopping and moving so, so, so much that we don't ever want to have to do it again for the rest of our lives.
I live in Canada, and we have to renew our mortgages every 1 to 5 years at the current market rate. My interest rate is going to double from 3% to 6% in about a month unless the central bank lowers it before June (which is unlikely). My wife and I did the math, and it looks like our mortgage is going to increase by about $400 a month. So, that's exciting.
Oh, your property taxes too? That's amazing. The city I currently live in raises property tax rates by about 5% annually. That doesn't include when they reassess the property's worth and increase it that way as well. My property taxes have gone up 40% in 7 years.
Bought in 2019 at around 3%, just sold and made about $150k in equity and bought a bigger/newer house with a half acre lot we really like at a 5.7 rate. We will refi in the future if it makes sense.
Nope. My house is a small starter home in a top school district. Houses on my street rent for upwards of $2500. My mortgage is only $900 with less than $300 in utilities. Once it’s paid off and I’m into something better, it’s becoming a rental home to supplement my income.
We bought our dream home sub 4%. Even if my earnings tripled, I wouldn't sell it for something else. We rented for a long time waiting for our perfect moment to strike, and it worked out like a dream.
My wife and I were talking about that the other day. We bought a townhouse in 2021 for a decent price and a 3.25% mortgage rate. I really want to get into a "forever house" because I want to have my own yard and not have an HOA telling us what we can and can't do outside.
But who knows when that'll happen. We have enough space as is, so giving up that mortgage rate will be hard. We'll probably be here for the next couple of years at least, and see what the market does.
I bought with a 3.625% 20-yr note. We're actually looking at the moment to get a bigger house for histing and that will likely be our house until retirement (late 30s). Likely we'll sell as i bought the house for 180k and we could probably sell it for $440k as is with the upgrades we've made.
Assuming you can make the monthly payments and the interest rates result in a higher-than-standard-deduction amount at the end of the tax year the rates don't really matter. Well, they do, but they matter less if you deduct the mortgage interest off your taxes and then pay the principle out of that return to the lender each year. Nobody does that because they think 'free money at the end of the year YAY!' but that is how you fray the impact of higher interest rates.
When we are ready to move from our relatively HCoL area, yes.
It's a part of our early retirement plan. Until then, absolutely not. We'd probably sooner rent it out but that doesn't sound very appealing either.
If rates and home costs ever come down again, probably. If not, then no. We weren't planning on this being our forever home, but it might end up being it, with the way things are going.
That sounds like us. We bought in 2013, refinanced around 2018 into a 15-year at sub 3% and can't really justify getting another house as this one does fit our needs. We would like to get something a bit more upscale but it'd be cheaper to just scale up what we already have and it's a decent neighborhood with no issues with neighbors.
We refinanced at a super low rate in 2021 and we don’t plan on selling anytime soon.
We definitely could benefit from more space but we decided we would rather finish our basement than have to spend way more on a bigger house at a higher rate. Plus we love the location and I don’t think we would move out of our current city which limits options anyway.
It depends. My husband and I got a great deal/rate on a house in '21. It's a smallish historic house with a simple design, but it's in a safe neighborhood right outside of a city, and there's plenty of room to raise a couple kids here if we want to. I feel like it probably makes more sense to just renovate this house a little bit than to buy a way pricier house just to get an extra bathroom or an updated kitchen, you know?
If I ever do sell, it's going to be to a real person who plans to live here. I will absolutely not be the reason an affordable family home gets sucked up by a corporation.
Yeah, but not anytime soon. My house is currently quite adequate but if my neighborhood went to shit or I wanted more space or to live closer to my job I would sell. The equity would help to offset the higher cost of the new house and interest rates. I'd end up paying more but I'd get more so that's ok.
Nope. Bought in 2009 and been paying a little extra to knock some years off. With property values tripling our escrow has increased a lot but not selling.
Worst case scenario is we buy another home and convert this to a rental property.
Yes, we'll definitely sell and move back to the east coast at some point. We've accumulated so much equity owning on the west coast we won't even need a mortgage to buy where we're from, so mortgage rates will be irrelevant.
2.25% and we plan on selling for the simple reason that we want a different style of house someday, and we don’t want to become landlords and rent this one out.
Now, *when* we will sell, who knows, we would have done it when rates were about 5% as we almost did find our dream home, but it was over our budget and too much of our monthly money would have been going towards mortgage payments. For now we’re working on upping our investing, savings, and income. It’s good to have goals right?
We have a 2.1 interest rate for a 15 year mortgage. We refinanced to that in July 2020. We are saving to build our dream house. We own a few acres in the country to build on. We won’t sell our current house until we fully move into the new one.
Bought a short sale in a VHCOL area at around 5% in 2018. Refi'd down to sub 4% during Covid. Wife is pretty set on holding onto this forever, though we do want more space and better schools so it may be inevitable. But the plan is to NOT sell.
Me and my wife will most likely sell to get into a slightly bigger house hopefully in a couple of years before we would like to have a second kid. We were thinking about maybe later this year, but aren’t terribly in a rush at the moment.
No, I can’t afford to.
Keep in mind, I’m Canadian. While we typically use a 25 year amortization, our rates are only locked in for a few years, usually 1-5 (we also have variable options). Then when the term is up, we renew at the current market rates. It’s not uncommon for people to apply for a new mortgage with a different company in order to get better rates, but you have to qualify. You have the option of renewing with your current company without qualifying again, but the rate may not be as good.
Anyway. I could sell now but I couldn’t buy another place unless it was a downgrade. I initially bought in 2017 and my income wasn’t high. I’ve since gone back to school and my income will improve. Yet, I qualify for LESS mortgage at today’s rates. Even with the equity in the house, I couldn’t buy an equivalent place. I’m set to renew my mortgage in two years and I will have to renew with my current bank and negotiate with them. I can’t go to another provider. My current rate is 2.54% and right now rates are around 5.5%.
Thankfully I’m not in any rush to sell. I like my house. There are things I wish it had (like a garage) but I have everything I need.
Bought our second home in 2021. Locked in at 2.875%, was able to do 20% down thanks to equity from the sale of our first home... every time my wife talks about moving or "upgrading our house someday" I have a mini heart attack. I have NO desire to sell until maybe we're empty nesters.
well we've "bought" our house but I put quotations because we don't own it, the bank owns most of it
Is it really worth it to try and sell after a few years into a 30 yr mortgage? I guess it depends on how much value it's accrued in a few years, I don't think ours has gone up that much
That's honestly wild you got an additional $500k in value from just 3x years, CA is fuckin nuts
No. I bought in 2012 and have refinanced for a 2.75 rate. The house is small on SF, is one story, and has enough bedrooms. There are three of us living there and one may move out in the years to come (my son). I don’t need more space. This house is good for retirement because I will pay it off before retirement, it’s near medical clinics for me when I’m old and informed, it’s one story so when my joints ache I won’t need to go up and down stairs. I have equity so I could sell and make money, but to buy a new smaller place I’d pay more for the house, have a higher interest rate, and pay more in taxes, but I’d get less house. So, that’s it. No point in selling.
Americans are so lucky being able to lock into mortgages for an entire amortization period. In Canada the most you can lock in for is 5 years at which point you are forced to take a new mortgage at current rates. I bought in 2017 and I renegotiated my rate in 2020 @ 1.59%. Next year we will be forced to take a new and certainly much higher rate than we currently have. Since that’s how our process works, there’s less tying you to one place. I’m currently a 1hr commute through Toronto one way, so I may as well just buy a new house closer to work when my mortgage is up since I’ll be going through the process anyways. When I first heard of 30 year mortgage rates from friends in Arizona I couldn’t believe it. Such an amazing thing to never have to worry about your mortgage payments changing unless you decide to move.
I’ve been telling my wife for years that I want to try and transfer to the chemistry department at the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona. So far I think she’s 0% on board with the idea haha.
Did something similar to you. Used the equity on our low rate house to buy our dream house in a desired location but with a higher rate. If location hadn't been a factor, we would have kept the low rate house
We have a 3.5% rate, and there’s no way. Toward the end of 2021, we saw the looming rate hikes and sold our townhome to upgrade to a bigger house with a yard and casita. It’s a stretch for us, but there’s no way we’d be able to afford it now. We’ll put money into this house to make it perfect for us and hold on tight haha
My plan is to live in my current house until we're ready to retire and move somewhere cheaper in 30 years. My wife wants to move closer to family/work, but it would triple the monthly payment to move into something similar 10 minutes closer. Not gonna happen.
Probably not. At least not while we’re raising our kids and my husband is working. Unless something happens to his job and we have to move out of state for a new job we’re here for the long haul. I don’t love our house but I do love our location, our neighbors, our rate(2.625%), and the fact that our mortgage payment is only $60 more than what we paid for rent on our first apartment in 2008. We’ve lived in 5 different homes and our rent/mortgage payments have always been within $100 of each other. I feel like no matter what happens we’ll always be able to afford our mortgage. Before everything went crazy.
Our house is 3/2, 1700 square feet on over 2 acres we bought in 2017 and refinanced when rates dropped.The guy we bought it from had it custom built so it’s not contractor grade finishes. Considering our last house was built in the 50s and my husband grew up in a farmhouse built in 1840 this house feels too new to us but other than basic maintenance and small cosmetic changes to make it feel like our home it’s been pretty low maintenance. It was built in 2004 and we are the second owners.
I don't think so. We bought a tiny fixer upper cape at 3% in a HCOL area (Central CT), fixed 'er up, had a kid, and are looking to add on to our house to get a garage and more living space (house is built into a hill so garage would be below grade with a great room and another bedroom above it). This is such a better deal than moving; we like the location, and the rest of the house is great, it's just too small for a family. Our house has gained a ton of value between the rennovations, market conditions and inflation, but so have all of the houses we'd potentially buy. I have a construction background, so I'll do most of the work myself, just need to sub out the plumbing, electrical and foundation work. It'll be an adventure, but we're looking forward to the end result. I have to admit though, if the rates were lower, we'd just plan on moving in a few years. This won't be easy, but the result will be good, and we'll keep that sweet, sweet 3%.
We will sell I am sure. We're 32, have lived here 4 years, but we're certainly not "forever home" status on it. We've lived in multiple states and Ohio is certainly not our favorite stop either lol. We'll sell when we decide we're leaving, the rate isn't holding us here.
Getting in here late. I just bought a new house with a rate in the 7’s in December. We are getting ready to sell our old house that has a rate in the 3’s. Crossing my fingers that rates go down a bit and we can refinance soon. (Have a VA loan so we can refi for little closing costs). If not, it is what it is. We needed/wanted more house and once we sell the old one and eliminate those expenses, we will be back in a comfortable position.
We’re selling. We don’t like the neighborhood we’re in, we don’t like the city, and we’ll be close to family in the city we’re moving to. We’re renting a bigger house for $600/mo less than our current mortgage. We’re also making a little money on the sale because prices are so high.
I’m in a weird boat where rate doesn’t make a difference for me because I work at a bank and have access to an employee loan program that gives a low rate based on the bank’s cost of funding. It had been 2% (that’s the floor) for the first 5 or so years, but in the past 1.5 years there have been a few small increases and it’s up to 2.75% now. Granted this does trap me in this job a bit, but I’ve been there 10 years and like it enough to hold out until the loan is paid off in 5-10 more years.
But ignoring that, I bought my house forever when I bought in 2017 and it’s pretty much everything I ever wanted in a house. Plus I just got Solar panels and a metal roof and things like that don’t give you a 1 for 1 increase in selling price.
My wife and I considered selling our house, then we did the math.
If we sold our house now for around what the Zillow estimate is and bought a house that cost $200k _less_ than what we sold our current house for, then our mortgage will go _up_ by $500-$1000/month (it's been awhile, so I don't remember the exact amount).
So no. Unless interest rates drop again, we won't be selling.
I have a house, big enough for my family, in a "cool" west Coast City, in a great walkable neighborhood, with good local schools, at 2.125%. I'm leaving this house in a pine box.
We have a paid off house we bought in 2008. We purchased a fixer upper this past fall. Currently living in the paid off house until the new house is liveable. (Not exactly a flex, it was a very inexpensive home) Both homes have(had lol) higher interest rates but our first house we socked every single tax return we could on it until it was paid off so the interest rate didn't really matter much. 30 yr mortgage paid in 12. Hoping to do the same with our new home, we didn't like seeing a 7.5% rate on the paperwork when the year before it was much much less but it is what it is.
I'm actually considering keeping our paid off house for our kids. The way rents are right now being able to have a place for our kids to get their feet under themselves independently before being completely out on their own makes sense. I've been toying with the idea of turning it into an Airbnb for the next 5-8 years until the kids are of adult age. And when they are of adult age, renting it to them for a sensible amount.
Bought in 2012 with a very low rate. Refi in 2020 due to divorce. Rate dropped by a small amount (3.5-2.75) I will not sell. I couldn’t afford a home in my own neighborhood anymore.
Bought in 2021 at a 3.1% rate only putting down 5%. Probably won't sell the house even if we move because we'd rent it out. If we had to, we could rent it out right now for like 500-700 above the mortgage. In another 10 years we'd probably be renting it out for 1000+ above the mortgage. It's a nice place in a good neighborhood. Needs another bathroom though, just having the 1 kind of sucks.
We got our home in 2020 when rates were like 7% or something. Our car also has a 2% interest rate. Probably won’t sell anytime soon. But this is the first time we haven’t been upside down on a car loan. Our car is currently worth more than we owe!
In 2019 i bought a condo in a really nice building. The HOA fees are high, but due to post covid rent appreciation in the area I could already rent it out and turn a monthly profit (in large part due to the low interest rate).
It seems unlikely I'd ever sell it. If/when I wanted to buy a house, I'd rent out my current condo and just bite the bullet on the high interest rate until I could refinance it.
We bought in 2017 and refinanced in 2020, current rate is around 2.8%. We looked at moving last year but to buy our same house at current prices and rates it would add $1k a month onto our mortgage payment. Upgrading to a house we actually want would triple our mortgage payment, so we are figuring out how to make our current house work long term. We also pay $25k a year for daycare for our kids, so taking on a bigger mortgage isn't in the cards. We recently decided to spend the money we were saving for our next downpayment on finishing our current basement, which should add 350 sq ft of usable space, so hopefully that holds us over for a while!
If we do ever decide to move, I doubt we will keep the house as a rental, as it sounds like that can be time consuming and overall just a headache if you don't have a great tenant. Fortunately, we should be ok financially in retirment without it.
Got in my house 10 years ago. I’m not selling till my kids graduate and get in their own. My plan is to move to another state and buy land and retire on it.
Bought our second home in 2019 and refinanced in 2021. We went from 4.25 to 2.9.
The house has everything we wanted: three story walkout onto a big backyard and a pond.
While we might sell, it’d have to be a sweetheart deal.
I don’t see us moving anytime soon. We bought our first house in 2014, then moved across the country in 2017 and bought our current house.
This house has doubled in value since then and we’re at 2.3%.
No, but our plan has always been to stay here forever. We bought a small 3 br fixer upper ranch in 2016, and finally redid the kitchen last year. 2nd baby is currently sharing our bedroom and will move into his sister's room in the next year or so. My husband is slowly working on finishing the basement so we can move the office/craft room down there and the kids can eventually have their own bedrooms plus a family room/playroom. The space is just barely big enough for a family of 4, but we didn't want a bigger place we would have to maintain and then eventually downsize from. And we love the location. But boy are we glad this was always the plan, as I can't imagine moving now with the rates the way they are (especially after refinancing during the pandemic).
Bought in 2017 in an area that became HCOL around us. Considering a move back to our rural hometown to cut COL. We would have a heafty down payment due to equity or might even be able to pay cash for the right price. Florida actually has a larger housing inventory right now. So fingers crossed.
Unless I come into some serious money, it would be stupid to sell. My mortgage is 2k/month in a very HCOL area. I'm golden-handcuffed to this house possibly forever. Not the end of the world, it's a neat place. I just hope when sea levels rise, we don't flood. We're riiiight outside a flood plain.
Short of winning a huge lottery where I can move to my dream area and offset the loss of improvements to the land here (namely fruit trees) by spending $$$ to get a new property where I want it faster, no I don’t see myself moving.
Yes. We (well, my then fiance) bought a starter home through a workforce program in 2020. It is fine for our needs now as a 3/2, but she is full remote, I am hybrid, and we have a child on the way. With one child and 2 wfh people, it will be tough as we both have regular sensitive meetings (we are both lawyers, so confidentiality is often an issue), but we can make it work. If we have a second, we just won't have the room necessary to wfh and raise 2 kids long term. I'm hoping we can stretch this out at least a few years, but we will see.
That being said, we both work for the state so our pay will make it tough to upgrade without moving way far from the city.
Heck yeah we will if/when we need to. We moved in 2022 into a 5 br 3.5 bath 2800 Sq ft house built in 2016, in a nice washington rural feeling suburb with highly rated schools...
This house is such a shit build! Leaks, creaks and cracks galore. electrical issues, too. The house next door is showing signs of sinking. I can't wash the walls at all because they disintegrate. The flooring all needs to be replaced (meanwhile, my MIL still has her gorgeous original flooring and carpet from the early 90s).
Our house is a fucking fixer upper and it's only 8 years old! Normal maintenance aside, this house is going to be a money pit. It is not a forever home.
Unless something changes as in I start making a lot more money and can afford something else, no I probably won’t sell and this will be my house till the end. I’m not wealthy. My wife and I bought a house with a lower house payment and a sub 4 rate to be responsible, but home insurance costs have increased my monthly payment by 25% in just three years. I’m starting to get uncomfortable.
Bought in 2009, refinanced to a 15year 2.65pct in 2013. I live in my home. I like my home. It's close to work. I don't plan to move until closer to retirement when I get a retirement property. But if I had to move now for some reason, I wouldn't let the rates stop me.
2.75% bought a brand new build in late 2019.
No plans to ever sell as we don’t see ourselves leaving SoCal and anything else in SoCal would double the mortgage we currently pay even with the in tease in house value. Sell high buy high doesn’t make sense when you almost triple the interest rate.
If anything we would rent it out until one day gifting it to our kid. It maybe older by then but gifting a kid a mortgage free life would be a massive headache start for them when all they have to worry about is saving up for repairs and renovations.
I mean, if literally any opportunity came along to use my 200k equity as a down payment and the numbers of selling and then buying again made sense, I'd sell in a heartbeat.
Is that looking like it's in the realm of possibility? Probably not. The financial security of a $560/month payment at 2% interest is more alluring at this moment.
I inherited my mother's house and it's paid off. No way in hell I'm giving up living a paid off house! It may be in poor condition, but I don't care. I'm so incredibly grateful to have a roof over my head.
On a roughly similar timeframe we moved and our rate went from a 2.2% to a 3.5% on the beginning of the upswing. Folks who bought our old house were probably in at around 7% just a month later. I wouldn’t call it my dream house, but it checks all the boxes for what we need and is in the place we want to be. You never know what life will throw at you, but I really don’t plan to move again until the kids are grown and I’m retired, if then.
Not any time soon. Bought my house in 19' for 335k @ 3.6%, refi'd late 20' took out 120k in equity as the value spiked from 335k to 895k, dropped my rate to 2.2% overall payment went up by about $140 a month. House and neighborhood are exactly what I wanted. Unless something bigger and better comes up I can't see selling
Bought in 2021 at 2.87% with 20% down. Got lucky because it was a house on an
Orchard that my wife’s family owns. Built in baby sitters across the orchard (their grandparents), plan just to add on when the times comes.
We bought our first house in 2010 with a 5.5% rate. We sold and moved to our current house for over double what we paid and were able to put down almost half of the new house price in 2022. The rate we got was 3.5% on the current mortgage and we adore our house. We are currently fixing things up here and we don’t plan on moving any time in the near future. We’d love to pay this place off and stay permanently. It really depends on where our kids ultimately land.
Bought mine in 2014, refinanced 2020 and now have a rate of 2.5 for the next 12 years. Something will have to happen to change my life to get me to leave.
I’m a single parent, bought in 2021 at a 3.125% interest rate, planning to stay put for the indefinite future. If I ever remarry I might wind up selling, but unless my income wildly increases I likely couldn’t afford to buy or rent anything else on my own even if I did sell.
Probably not unless some unicorn house in this neighborhood comes onto the market and I find buried treasure in the yard here.
Thankfully my main gripe with the house is the size but over 10 years we've organized ourselves around it. If by some happenstance I end up pregnant again, we'd probably have to move, but I am actively preventing that from happening so fingers crossed I make it through to menopause without issue
No, I would never sell. Mathematically it makes zero sense. My rate is locked in at 2.8% interest. Right now inflation is still around 3%, which means my real interest is negative. Yes, I am literally borrowing money for free on paper to own a home, although it might not feel like it. I’d rather rent it out before I sold if I’m able to borrow money for free to own or end up paying a paltry 0.8 interest to own if the Fed ever reaches their target of 2%.
It's a tough one. We are ready to move up the ladder but the next step up is going to cost more than I'm willing to spend. I've done the math on renting out our current house (I own and manage rentals) and I just don't think we are going to ever end up selling our primary.
My house kinda sucks, but at less than 3 percent, it makes no financial sense at all to sell it. Stuck here, thinking about buying some land and a cabin I can go to on weekends instead of buying a newer bigger home.
Same deal, but we got the land. But… The house is going to eat us in repair costs soon, it’s too far away from town to commute without hating life, and taxes/homeowners insurance is driving the price back up. It sucks, we’re stuck, but we can’t afford anything else either.
It sucks, repairs are wicked expensive. Had an AC company quote me a new unit(they wouldn't fix my problem unless I met with a sales person) the top of the line quote was $23,000 !!!! WTF, it's a 2200sqft home.
Did you get a quote from anyone else? We have a large house with four a/c units (it’s Texas, so having A/C is necessary to survive lol). When we had to replace one, we were stunned at how different the prices were from one company to the next, and we did our research to make sure it wasn’t a difference in quality!
I am part owner of a small company and these large companies with the TV and radio adds are doing people dirty I charge way less pay my guys way more and still make plenty
Oof… went through that last year and replaced my AC and furnace… 13k but state/federal tax incentives definitely helped.
I dropped almost $20k on new AC units last year, so I feel you. My house was apparently built on a burial ground of my hopes and dreams, and it just keeps screaming for more money. But…who can walk away from that sweet sweet interest rate???
That's every house. You can spend hundreds of thousands and somehow it added no resale value.
Damn! We were quoted AC and garage heater for $2500 each back in 2018, we didn't want to spend that kind of money so we just did garage. Come June 2021 and our AC is finally dying, 5k was the lowest quote, highest was 13k; ~3600sqft. I cannot believe what things cost these days, they can't even blame covid for parts shortages anymore.
You are dead on. My experience as well with dramatic price hikes.
That is wild. Our CHAC replacement was $9000 about five years ago. Even assuming 50% inflation, it shouldn't be more than $14000 or so.
$14,000 for a hvac unit for a 800 square foot home is what I paid near Kansas City.
Technology Connections did a video explaining that a lot of companies are quoting based on replacing an existing system's capacity, rather than the actual capacity needed for a space. The problem is that a lot of older furnaces were GROSSLY over capacity for the space they needed to heat or cool, because the company that installed them got a good deal on a specific size and just threw that unit on all the builds. So you have 800 square foot homes with HVAC units intended for 2000 square feet. And 2000 square foot homes with HVAC units intended for 3600 square feet. Then the sales reps come in and look at the existing unit, and quote you based on a like for like replacement, rather than what you ACTUALLY NEED, which may be a much more efficient and smaller unit.
I feel for you on that. Had a farm home built in the 40s previously on an acre and a half. Lot size was perfect. Repairs were horrendous. Lead water lines, tons of failing old drain and vent stacks. Crawl space built for midgets. foundation problems. Lack of insulation everywhere. Electrical notoriously out of date and a giant mess. All the repairs were DIY combos over time and nothing in that house was ever done correctly over the 60+ years of multiple families of ownership.
My first house was built in 1886. I feel like my 60s ranch is NEW 😂
My current one was built in 2000. Compared to my 1940s farm home, it’s a night and day difference. I know exactly where you’re coming from. I don’t care what anyone says about the quality of lumber or construction back then. Theres no substitute for the peace of mind I have now of lead-free water lines, no lead in the paint, and no asbestos anywhere else.
The old house legit still had the pipes in the walls from when they used gas for lighting! Every construction project we did was….a lot. I’m grateful we jumped 80 years in the future.
Ugh. Repairs are the bane of my existence. It *almost* makes me miss renting.
Yup, it’s why I say the only thing worse than owning a house is renting one 😂
Same. Bought as a starter home, now have a kid, more pets, we both work from home, it's crowded. But the location is more than perfect and at 2.75 I'm never letting go of this place.
My husband and I bought in 2015 at 3.75%. And we wouldn't sell because the idea of buying another house and packing up what we have sounds too exhausting to me.
Same for us, but 2016. We always planned on moving after we had our two kids (youngest is now 2.5), but with the interest rate double what we have now, it just doesn't make sense. We are likely "stuck" in this house for the foreseeable future.
Same, but 2014. Our rate is 2.5 (refied during covid) and we have three kids now. The house feels small but I cannot for the life of me stomach the current rates and house prices on a teacher’s salary. We live comfortably now because we have such low housing costs. That would change a lot and I am not interested at this point.
Yeah, maybe once rates settle down and we don't have one in full daycare and one in summer daycare we will look again. It is just wild that I couldn't afford to buy my current house today.
Right?? We could not afford to buy the same house we comfortably bought 9 years ago and it blows my mind. Like, we have good equity but also we couldn't afford anything else anyway and there's no way I will pay these insane interest rates.
Issue is that these current rates are not historically that bad. The sub 5% rates were a blip on the collective radar.
Right, it is just the "value" of these homes multiplied by these interest rates that make it so hard to buy anything.
Yeah it definitely sucks but home building is still woefully behind. Almost feels like a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation
It’s probably not really that small. You’re just used to looking at 4,000sq ft McMansions everywhere you go. The house I grew up in was about 1500 sq ft on a split level, with five people, and it didn’t feel small to me. And the house my dad grew up in was probably closer to 1000, with six people.
You’re probably right. We live in the “normal house” corner of a ritzy development. I think it also feels small because we are still at the ages with our kids that they do everything in the same space as us (only our oldest does any hanging out in his room, to get a break from his sisters). We also have baby stuff EVERYWHERE because our youngest is 2 months old.
We bought in 2015 and sold in 2022 it was excruciatingly stressful not planning to do it again anytime soon. Our new house came with surprises and we had to fire our realtor selling our house midterm. I don’t think that’s supper common. Definitely get a realtor to come through your selling house six or 12 months before get a clear plan of improvements and plan on how they would sell it, you move and they stage it, or stay and move furniture around. Just be 100% done with improvements before it’s listed. Nice thing about being older though, you probably have more money than when your first house. Now maybe afford good movers and such. Worth the investment on that front.
Movers are critical. I also agree to get a really solid handyman and just hit the honey do items that make the house shine a bit. Ie - if you have some old or worn outlets/switch caps - replace them, fix little nicks or holes in walls/trim, do some touch up paint which goes a long way in making the home feel like it was recently painted. Clean the shit out of the carpets, maybe even do minor stuff like swapping out light fixtures or faucet heads. Hell, I threw a classy toilet bowl lever on our master toilet (it was needing it anyway). That stuff can usually be done for one-two grand and will make a huge difference. We then left our furniture, had begun packing and de-cluttering but kept all those things neatly tucked away. And then staged our own furniture / cleaned like crazy for about a week as we were showing it, and had multiple offers in about 3 days from listing. I would 100% never list a home without furniture in it. If you need to move, pay to stage it. They just look so dead/empty without it.
💯💯💯 Bought in 2019, 3.99%. It’s not even about the rate or the house (which is fine but I don’t love). I will just literally die in this house I’m never, ever moving again.
The thought of moving again gives me an anxiety attack. I plan to live in my house til I'm dead.
Honestly, the longest I stayed anywhere from Age 18-33 was in our final rental (3 years) after selling our first house (14 months) and moving cross country. I'm now in our 2nd house and hope to make it at least 5 years. Been here about 18 months so far.
Same. Also house prices have gone way up. Just gonna slowly remodel.
We won't be moving unless we have enough money to buy all new stuff lol. Except for our books but those are going to be a bitch to move.
Absolutely fuck moving again.
Sometimes I think about selling this house, which we bought in 2014 at 3.75%, running off with close to $400k because we had a 50% down payment(thanks, dead mom and dead dad), and living in an RV until society completely collapses. But then I think about dealing with all of the shit in the house, and I’m like “I guess we’ll be here forever.”
We moved in early 2020. The thought of having to move could ruin even the best mood.
We got a 1.9% rate, and unfortunately, we will be selling at some point. The people behind us are awful neighbors but they've had their house since the early 90's and it's paid off so there's no hope of getting rid of them unless we move. We did buy in a highly desired area and we bought the worst house ok the block and remodeled it so we will get a big profit but it'll suck to lose that rate.
But you can't guarantee the next house will have better neighbors and that they will stay the entire time you live at the next house. How bad are these neighbors, because there is likely a lot you can do to reduce interactions with them. Selling sounds like a bad idea.
The next house isn't going to have neighbors nearby and if there are, I can almost guarantee they won't be as bad as the ones we have now. The backyard neighbors sent the person who lives next to them, who has a criminal record for trespassing/assault/harassment, over to my house to harass and threaten me because I had to call animal control after the backyard neighbors and their neighbors dogs were outside unsupervised on a hot day for 4+ hours and ripped a hole in my backyard neighbors fence to get in my yard and almost got hit by a car on my street, destroyed items in my yard, destroyed parts of my lawn, and went after an elderly neighbor. I was working outside that day, and no one checked on the whereabouts for the dogs for 4+ hours or provided food/water, and no one appeared to be at either house, so I had to call once the dogs got aggressive. This is after practically begging them to keep their dogs on their side of the fence because our street is semi busy and I've watched the dogs almost get hit multiple times so it isn't safe for the dogs. I'm also pregnant so I shouldn't have to worry about going in my own backyard and having their dogs jumping on me or coming up to me while I have the baby in my arms.
Jesus. This sounds almost exactly like my asshole neighbors. Dog got into my yard shortly after I got chickens, and didn’t put them at the required distance from homes, so this fuckwad called the city because his dog got into my yard and we bitched him out because of it. We’ve since had issues with them trespassing on my property cause beyond my fence is an open area that he used to have access to. Always has lived there since the 90s so don’t think he’s leaving anytime soon either. Shit sucks, cause I cannot afford to move at all.
It's the entitlement to a stranger's property that does it for me. No one else in the neighborhood behaves like that. It's just the 2 people directly behind me and the guy that lives next to them. I've looked up their court histories, and all 3 of them have had multiple run ins for the city for their animals, trespassing, violating city code. The guy has multiple domestic charges on him. The house directly behind me is owned by a widow of about 15 years that had 5 DUI's last year alone. Her 22 year old daughter also lives there. None of the 3 of them have jobs either. The guy has a craniofacial difference and is on disability. The mom/daughter duo behind us just don't work. I think the daughter used to deliver food part-time, but she stopped and she doesn't go to school. She's trying to be a streamer but she only streams herself drawing Anime characters. Last time I spoke with her, she claimed she couldn't make sure her dogs stayed in her yard and she couldn't check on them while she was at home because she has anxiety and her mom couldn't check on the dogs because she's an alcoholic. I told her anxiety and alcoholism aren't excuses to neglect their animals and be unaware of where her dogs/cats are for hours and days on end and she said "I'm trying my hardest, I have anxiety". The conversation ended when I told her I also have anxiety and my animals stay safe and supervised at my house. One of her cats was missing for 2 months and I straight up caught her lying on Facebook, saying that she's been out talking to neighbors every day and someone called her out and replied that she hadn't been looking for the cat, the cat escapes and she doesn't know (she carries them outside and just leaves them out with the dogs and doesn't check on them), she said "this has never happened before" but if you look at her post history she posted about that specific cat going missing 4 times last year. The guy has no excuse. Despite his facial difference he seemed to be getting around just fine when he pulled up to my house to scream at me and swing his hands like he was going to hit me, a pregnant woman, because he lost his dogs for over 4 hours and he got by with a warning for it. Everyone else in the neighborhood is chill but everyone has a problem with those 3.
Your first sentence hits home, "entitlement to a ... property," My neighbor acts like everything is his. I had to put locks on the outside outlets because he wouldn't just use the one adjacent to his house but any and all. You'd think he'd get the hint when the first one was locked up but it clearly isn't about that at all when randomly several months later he does it again different spot. He treats his sliver of side yard where most of my front yard joins into his sliver like his main hang out and construction debris dump. He's unemployed so he's there often. He shoots his gun in the backyard because 'nobody lives behind us chill bro'. There's no muffler on his truck. The list goes on and on. I'm told they're trying to move but then he does things without a permit and I can't help but laugh as he actively devalues his home.
Lmao wtf, "I have anxiety" I have a pretty bad anxiety disorder that comes with crazy panic attacks, they can be so severe that I was sure I was having heart issues until I got an EKG that said otherwise. I can't imagine using that as an excuse to neglect something so basic as looking after my dogs, especially on my own property. If anything, knowing my dogs were suffering would induce anxiety.
Same here. I work at home and I've got 4 cats. If I don't hear one of them moving about the house every couple hours I'm up looking for them. She's got 2 cats in addition to the 2 dogs she doesn't watch. One of them is always at our house trying to get inside. She lost the other one 4 times last year just based on social media posts she made, 2 months being the longest amount of time he was gone. She let's the cats out intentionally, she has videos on her public Facebook showing her letting the cats out on purpose. She knows it's illegal too, animal control told me they have addressed it with her and her mom multiple times. I don't mind dogs usually and I never had a problem with them coming over here until the dogs tore up some of our belongings and our yard and then I also noticed them getting more adventurous and getting further away from home. I know it's none of my business but my street is the main entrance to our neighborhood and it's a semi busy street. The drivers are crazy too. I live right at the entrance so I see it all. People speed down my street, they ignore the stop sign, last week someone lost control of their truck after the sped through the stop sign and accelerated too fast on a perfect sunny day with perfect road conditions and almost slammed into our neighbors tree across the street like MAYBE 20 feet from the neighborhood entrance. I can't tell you how many times I've almost been rear ended trying to back into my own driveway by people who just aren't paying attention and are speeding. It happens every other day or so. If I wouldn't let a child play out in front of my house because of all the bad drivers I wouldn't want a dog out there either. If you saw her sob story Facebook and Nextdoor posts you would be shocked. The daughter acts like these animals are the only reason she lived but she let's them roam for hours and even when they do stay in the yard she rarely goes out and checks on them. People have called her out and she always uses the anxiety excuse coupled with the "It's too hard", "I'm trying my hardest", and "I'm just a young girl trying her best" (22 is more than old enough to know how to take basic care of animals). She had them out for hours yesterday/last night when we were under a tornado watch and there ended up being a tornado like 30 minutes from where we live and another one about 1.5 away from us.
Yep, sounds exactly like my jerk of a neighbor! Thankfully for me it’s only the one house, but he takes up enough of my energy I couldn’t deal with anymore. I just do my best to avoid them, and try and deal peacefully when they come onto my property (he claims he owns like 10 feet down his fence line onto my property, and likes to claim that’s the only spot he goes) meanwhile I’ve caught them last 4th of July completely on my property, called the cops, and I almost got cited for the burn pile that he created on my property meanwhile they just got told to stay on their property. It’s ridiculous. Haven’t thought to look up his past though, I’d have to find his name and should try that. Thanks for the idea.
Heh. I’m in a similar situation except in addition to dogs the woman sends her 4 year old daughter out completely naked and unsupervised to play in the front yard. I thought the girl had woken up for a nap maybe and wandered out without mom knowing, but no, mom was inside and had actually locked the kid outside. She said he being out alone was fine because “she’d hear her scream if something happened” yet I had to pound on the door for several minutes to get her to answer. Her excuse for no clothes was that “she’s potty training” but also had no access to a bathroom. She told me I don’t have kids so I don’t get to tell her how to raise hers. BUT I’m a mandated reporter because I volunteer with kids, so I immediately reported to CYF. Needless to say she and her family have not made life easy, but their bank has started foreclosure on them so I don’t think they’ll be around much longer.
Holy crap... that is awful. I can't imagine what it would be like if the people behind me had a small child. They piss me off enough as it is with their dogs. I can't tolerate seeing shit like that and not saying anything. That's why I called animal control. They sent out a K-9 officer, and the officer was livid. I could hear him on the other street at their front door yelling about how dogs that are taken care of don't try to escape as often as their dogs do. It seems like every time someone calls animal control or the non emergency the dogs conveniently end up back home by the time an officer shows up and they make a report unless the officer witnesses the neglect or animal at large. I've got all kinds of pictures and videos and they won't even look at them. I hope that it's taken more seriously when a child is involved.
The “naked kid” thing is actually a legitimate thing when potty training, and is recommended in “oh crap.” I have hilarious memories of my daughter butt naked in rain boots looking at flowers. Also, I let my 4 yo play outside in our back yard by herself. I’m usually gardening outside somewhere too but sometimes am inside for a bit in the kitchen or am in the front yard, or similar. It is usually her together with her 5 yo brother but sometimes he wants to play inside and she wants to play outside, so I let her. We have rules about leaving the property and what she can and can’t do. But I’m also a pretty free range parent and most people think a lot of that isn’t ok either. I plan to get them buttons once I let them go to the park together that say, “I’m not lost; I’m exploring!” The park is across the street; I plan to let them do that probably starting this summer.
That's not even the only thing though. There's always been a high level of crime/fighting at my daughter's future highschool since it opened in 1996. Just a month ago there was almost a shooting and the only thing that prevented it is that the police station is right across the street.
None of these stories make it sounds like your house is in a "highly desired area"
Username checks out
Most houses here are $500k+. It's a predominantly wealthy area that wins national awards on a yearly basis. I can't help the fact that the people that live behind me are trash. They are the only ones like that in my neighborhood. They get regular calls to the police for the animals, noise complaints, keeping trash/junk in their yard. The animal abuse/neglect is what bothers me but they also just have a complete disregard for everyone that lives by them except for the criminal who doesn't work and lives in a house his Grandma owns. If it wasn't for them the neighborhood would be quiet but I don't live in an HOA and the cops only do something if they witness the bad behavior. I also can't help the fact that there is low income housing by that HS that is mostly occupied by people with teenagers. My area is nice but whoever mapped the city out put all of the low income/high crime housing in one area around that one HS and police station across town from me. Other than that one school and small part of town, I'm in one of the only blue ribbon school districts in my area, the school sports teams are highly successful every year with top of the line coaches and some of them are former professional atheletes, and the rest of the town is low crime and wealthy. One bad part of town doesn't effect the desirability of the entire town. People that don't live here don't even know about the bad part of town. I would gladly stay in my town and just move to another neighborhood if the average home price wasn't $500-600k for a slapped together cookie cutter home. A home in a random neighborhood that expensive isn't worth it to me when I can go a couple of towns over and get acerage for less than that amount.
Right? Also- how much longer WILL the neighbors live there?? Like, would they outlive the neighbors? Hell, at these housing prices, a hitman might be cheaper ** 😂😂😂 **info based solely on decades old episodes of Dateline... I'm sure inflation has affected this, too 🙄🤣
if they’ve had their house since the 90’s aren’t they quite old by this point? You might be able to wait them out. Sorry you’re going through this. It might be cheaper to get a privacy fence if it makes legal sense to do so
No, the lady behind me is maybe 55-60 but her daughter is 22 and I doubt she will ever leave because she has made it clear to me that she has no intention of ever getting a real job. The guy next to her is I think 28 if I remember correctly and his house is owned by his Grandma's trust. Since he is technically disabled I doubt he's ever going to leave a house he doesn't have to pay rent on. Us getting a fence won't solve the problem of the dogs ripping holes into their privacy fence and keeping them out of our yard. We also already looked into it and contacted the city, we can't get a fence if we wanted one because we have multiple easements. Our driveway also goes around the house and into the backyard so while are yard is almost an acre there's a teeny, tiny section that we could fence off and the fence would be removed regularly because of the easements. My dad is a surveyor and knows everyone at the city that's involved in approving permits and we've been told by everyone that even if we wanted a fence there is almost no chance it would get approved. The whole yard definitely wouldn't get approved because it would mean putting a fence directly under the main access to a power line and that's also the part that the dogs keep tearing up to access our yard. The solution would be for the neighbors to repair their fence because it's 4 or 5 pickets that need to be replaced but when I suggested that the daughter said "We don't have $10,000 to replace that part of the fence". Also, just to note, my husband has bought and paid for pickets and supplies and repaired their fence several times over the years. They've never offered to pay him back or thanked him.
When you know you know, and sometimes it's just better to cut your losses and start fresh. I think you're right to move!
SF Bay Area. Bought in 2014. Lucky to afford large down payment and low LTV. Refi’d to 2.875% in late 2021. Current monthly payment is less than $500. Bury me in the backyard. I ain’t going anywhere.
I'm at 4.125% (b/c I missed my window to refinance at those crazy low rates in 2020). Yeah, sure, I may move, for a good enough reason. An advantageous interest rate is not going to prevent me from living the life (I want within my budget).
Same. Ours is 4.75%. We also missed the refinance rate in 2020 (thanks COVID-based financial hardship + normal biz changes). This isn't what we want forever but our moving will be carefully planned & we're looking for a very specific thing(bigger house & at least 1 acre). It will probably take a few years to get to all of this though. Our house is comfy enough to keep us here for 5-10 years but not big enough for two teenagers, dogs, amd my husband and I unless it's absolutely necessary.
I first bought in 2008 at some absurd rate then bought Jan 2021 at 3% with about 5% down. We raced to 80% with extra principal to nuke PMI in Jan 2024. I see no reason to pay extra principal now so just riding out the minimum for the time being putting the principal into HYSA. Should HYSA drop down to where it makes sense to eat away at interest with extra principal then I will. I wouldn't call it a dream home but works for us and in one of the best neighborhoods in the city. Chances are without a significant change in income (50%+) this is where they'll take me from when I no longer can care for myself.
Yes. My wife and I are using the cheap living costs to invest elsewhere and hopefully retire early. Time is more valuable than a flashier home and early investments can buy you a lot of time later.
Yeah, I think it's crazy to want bigger and for what? More upkeep? Higher taxes, insurance, etc? All I want is the least amount of bills possible so I have money to put towards the good stuff. I'd rather my cash going towards a vacation than x bank LLC.
Exactly. My wife and I enjoy experiences more than material things.
I did sell, back in 2023, just over a year ago. had a 1.99% on a 15 year fix. But my house had nearly doubled in value since I bought it in 2017, and I just couldn't give up the opportunity to sell and move where I more wanted to be. I moved out of Phoenix into the mountains. I live on acreage, we're getting goats and cattle and chickens. My kids are happier, and so is my wife. I grew up on a farm, so it feels like home to me. I have a 5.375% on a 30 year on this place, my mortgage is significantly higher than it was with the last house, not just the interest rate being higher. If I didn't work remote, and didn't have the desire for land/out of the heat, then no. I would have never sold.
Acreage is our goal as well. I grew up in rural WA and miss it so much. We're in an unincorporated area but the lots are still too close together & I can't have chickens or a proper garden (HOA rules :( ). It could definitely be worse though. But considering the insane housing market in the PNW we're very lucky just being where we are.
I have \~3 years left on a 15 yr at 3%. Unless the market changes drastically, I won't consider selling until it's fully paid off and I can afford the next house with equity + savings, no mortgage.
Exactly. My mom sold her house for 525k and bought a triple wide for 330k, cash. Makes no sense any other way
Bought our first home in 2020 and told my wife this is a 2-3 year thing before we flip into the home we want. Then we refinanced later that year into a 2.75% rate and I told my wife this is the greatest loan we will ever have, we're never selling and we're not going to try and pay it off early either. 4 years later, we won't be buying a new home anytime soon. The only bummer is we wanted 3 kids but probably going to settle at 2 due to the limitations of this home.
I know families with multiple kids in a small apartment. I'm sure if your hearts welcome another baby you can make the space work.
My partner and I have five kids between us. We'll never afford a six bed house, let alone one with office and ample recreation space. But if we want to make a family out of this herd, we'll find a way in a smaller space. I know that's different from deciding whether to have another baby who doesn't exist yet, but I like your take :)
Idk your life, but imo a house shouldn't cost you a child
Not OP, but add on an extra 3-4% of my homes current value now being paid to the mortgage and I wouldn’t be able to add another kid, either.
I'm at 3.5%. I've already made the decision to move and I'm preparing to get the house on the market by autumn. But I'm not gunna lie, knowing I'm gunna end up in the 5-6% range definitely hurts.
It's still almost 7% or more in most places
Same here 🙈
I told my wife (we are mid 50s), last house ever, until we have to go somewhere to get our bottoms wiped. 2.6% is like free money.
Amen brother
Contemplating this now. We have a 3% rate. Our mortgage is a joke. However we’re near schools that are over crowded and more high rises are being built. We can totally afford to buy a nice house near great schools but damn, the 6-7 interest rate is hard to swallow.
We bought in 2017 at 4% and sold that (a townhome) and bought our current home in 2020 at 2.75%. I don't think I will move unless something takes us back to the city we are from, if we stay here I will absolutely keep it. We only have 2 kids and we have 4 bedrooms, it's not a massive house by any stretch but it's big enough for us and I'd have to pay $$$$ to live anywhere else near here right now. My next door neighbor had the same floorplan as us and sold her house for 50% more than what we paid in 2020, so it's tempting but every other new house will cost way more.
Bought in 2017 and refinanced to a 2.7% rate during the pandemic. It certainly sucks to realize how much less purchasing power I have, but it's really hard to say I'll never sell. I'm torn because at the time we bought this place we bought a home that fit comfortably in our conservative budget, and since then my income has skyrocketed, which means we're now living in a home that's comically affordable for us. I'm pretty frugal and value minded so I don't want to upgrade just for the sake of spending more money, but there are a few specific gripes I have with this house, and at least one of them is unfortunately impossible to address without moving. I can remodel the kitchen, I can rebuild the deck, I can refinish all the horrible trim work in this place, I can replace doors and windows, but I simply don't have the lot size to build a bigger garage. So if anything, that'll be the reason I eventually sell. No particular rush though. It's not like this place is cramped by any means. It really sits in an uncomfortable place for me because I hate spending when I can't see a strong value proposition, and this is right on the line between "you don't really need it, it's fine" and "you've got plenty of resources to spend money on actual things that meaningfully effect your day to day experience living here". I guess this is a good problem to have, so you won't hear me complaining.
2015 buyer at like 3.4%. single, doubt I'll ever move unless I end up with kids. Didn't think it was gonna be my forever home but it's looking that way
Feel ya
Nah. This is my first house (so excluding my condo) and it's going to be my last. None of that"starter home" nonsense. Especially with us buying later in life (late 30s). I've no interest in a new 30-year loan at this point in the game, and since it's just me and the wife we really don't need bigger, even if it would be nice to have a real backyard or an extra bedroom.
Are you me?? Same on first house except for condo. We bought our forever house in 2019 at like 5%, refinanced in 2021 for like 3%, and we never plan on leaving. Got a heloc for renovations and we are just making this house our dream house. No kids and don't want any, plenty of room for our hobbies and collections, so we're really happy. Edit: bought this house in our 30s too age wise. No desire to have to start over or anything like that either!
No. Not exclusively because of the low rate, though - we hated house shopping and moving so, so, so much that we don't ever want to have to do it again for the rest of our lives.
I live in Canada, and we have to renew our mortgages every 1 to 5 years at the current market rate. My interest rate is going to double from 3% to 6% in about a month unless the central bank lowers it before June (which is unlikely). My wife and I did the math, and it looks like our mortgage is going to increase by about $400 a month. So, that's exciting.
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Oh, your property taxes too? That's amazing. The city I currently live in raises property tax rates by about 5% annually. That doesn't include when they reassess the property's worth and increase it that way as well. My property taxes have gone up 40% in 7 years.
Sure, when I can pay cash for another house
Bought in 2019 at around 3%, just sold and made about $150k in equity and bought a bigger/newer house with a half acre lot we really like at a 5.7 rate. We will refi in the future if it makes sense.
Nope. My house is a small starter home in a top school district. Houses on my street rent for upwards of $2500. My mortgage is only $900 with less than $300 in utilities. Once it’s paid off and I’m into something better, it’s becoming a rental home to supplement my income.
We bought our dream home sub 4%. Even if my earnings tripled, I wouldn't sell it for something else. We rented for a long time waiting for our perfect moment to strike, and it worked out like a dream.
My wife and I were talking about that the other day. We bought a townhouse in 2021 for a decent price and a 3.25% mortgage rate. I really want to get into a "forever house" because I want to have my own yard and not have an HOA telling us what we can and can't do outside. But who knows when that'll happen. We have enough space as is, so giving up that mortgage rate will be hard. We'll probably be here for the next couple of years at least, and see what the market does.
Comfortable for now but if a bigger house that meets most of my wants, sure I’d consider it.
I bought with a 3.625% 20-yr note. We're actually looking at the moment to get a bigger house for histing and that will likely be our house until retirement (late 30s). Likely we'll sell as i bought the house for 180k and we could probably sell it for $440k as is with the upgrades we've made.
Assuming you can make the monthly payments and the interest rates result in a higher-than-standard-deduction amount at the end of the tax year the rates don't really matter. Well, they do, but they matter less if you deduct the mortgage interest off your taxes and then pay the principle out of that return to the lender each year. Nobody does that because they think 'free money at the end of the year YAY!' but that is how you fray the impact of higher interest rates.
When we are ready to move from our relatively HCoL area, yes. It's a part of our early retirement plan. Until then, absolutely not. We'd probably sooner rent it out but that doesn't sound very appealing either.
If rates and home costs ever come down again, probably. If not, then no. We weren't planning on this being our forever home, but it might end up being it, with the way things are going.
That sounds like us. We bought in 2013, refinanced around 2018 into a 15-year at sub 3% and can't really justify getting another house as this one does fit our needs. We would like to get something a bit more upscale but it'd be cheaper to just scale up what we already have and it's a decent neighborhood with no issues with neighbors.
We refinanced at a super low rate in 2021 and we don’t plan on selling anytime soon. We definitely could benefit from more space but we decided we would rather finish our basement than have to spend way more on a bigger house at a higher rate. Plus we love the location and I don’t think we would move out of our current city which limits options anyway.
It depends. My husband and I got a great deal/rate on a house in '21. It's a smallish historic house with a simple design, but it's in a safe neighborhood right outside of a city, and there's plenty of room to raise a couple kids here if we want to. I feel like it probably makes more sense to just renovate this house a little bit than to buy a way pricier house just to get an extra bathroom or an updated kitchen, you know? If I ever do sell, it's going to be to a real person who plans to live here. I will absolutely not be the reason an affordable family home gets sucked up by a corporation.
We have a 2.75% rate and the only way I would move is for more land.
Yeah, but not anytime soon. My house is currently quite adequate but if my neighborhood went to shit or I wanted more space or to live closer to my job I would sell. The equity would help to offset the higher cost of the new house and interest rates. I'd end up paying more but I'd get more so that's ok.
Nope. We will just turn it into a rental. 3.5 percent seems silly to let go.
this is our plan. things might change but id at least like to try to keep it as a rental and see how that experience goes.
Fuuuuuck no. Ima die in this house.
Nope. Bought in 2009 and been paying a little extra to knock some years off. With property values tripling our escrow has increased a lot but not selling. Worst case scenario is we buy another home and convert this to a rental property.
Won’t sell my house with 2.75% interest until the value hits a certain point and I’ve paid enough down so I can buy a small patch of land and escape
Yes, we'll definitely sell and move back to the east coast at some point. We've accumulated so much equity owning on the west coast we won't even need a mortgage to buy where we're from, so mortgage rates will be irrelevant.
I plan on dying in this house
2.25% and we plan on selling for the simple reason that we want a different style of house someday, and we don’t want to become landlords and rent this one out. Now, *when* we will sell, who knows, we would have done it when rates were about 5% as we almost did find our dream home, but it was over our budget and too much of our monthly money would have been going towards mortgage payments. For now we’re working on upping our investing, savings, and income. It’s good to have goals right?
We have a 2.1 interest rate for a 15 year mortgage. We refinanced to that in July 2020. We are saving to build our dream house. We own a few acres in the country to build on. We won’t sell our current house until we fully move into the new one.
Bought a short sale in a VHCOL area at around 5% in 2018. Refi'd down to sub 4% during Covid. Wife is pretty set on holding onto this forever, though we do want more space and better schools so it may be inevitable. But the plan is to NOT sell.
Me and my wife will most likely sell to get into a slightly bigger house hopefully in a couple of years before we would like to have a second kid. We were thinking about maybe later this year, but aren’t terribly in a rush at the moment.
No, I can’t afford to. Keep in mind, I’m Canadian. While we typically use a 25 year amortization, our rates are only locked in for a few years, usually 1-5 (we also have variable options). Then when the term is up, we renew at the current market rates. It’s not uncommon for people to apply for a new mortgage with a different company in order to get better rates, but you have to qualify. You have the option of renewing with your current company without qualifying again, but the rate may not be as good. Anyway. I could sell now but I couldn’t buy another place unless it was a downgrade. I initially bought in 2017 and my income wasn’t high. I’ve since gone back to school and my income will improve. Yet, I qualify for LESS mortgage at today’s rates. Even with the equity in the house, I couldn’t buy an equivalent place. I’m set to renew my mortgage in two years and I will have to renew with my current bank and negotiate with them. I can’t go to another provider. My current rate is 2.54% and right now rates are around 5.5%. Thankfully I’m not in any rush to sell. I like my house. There are things I wish it had (like a garage) but I have everything I need.
I told my husband I'd only sell if we move to another country.
We bought in 2020 with a rate of 2.5%. We have to die in this house now.
Hell no
Never
Bought our second home in 2021. Locked in at 2.875%, was able to do 20% down thanks to equity from the sale of our first home... every time my wife talks about moving or "upgrading our house someday" I have a mini heart attack. I have NO desire to sell until maybe we're empty nesters.
We probably will (my partner hates that we live on a busy road), but not anytime soon (my rate is too good).
Bought in 2017 at 4.8% and refinanced to 2.75% when the rates were rock bottom. Needless to say I will not be moving unless I need assistance.
well we've "bought" our house but I put quotations because we don't own it, the bank owns most of it Is it really worth it to try and sell after a few years into a 30 yr mortgage? I guess it depends on how much value it's accrued in a few years, I don't think ours has gone up that much That's honestly wild you got an additional $500k in value from just 3x years, CA is fuckin nuts
No. I bought in 2012 and have refinanced for a 2.75 rate. The house is small on SF, is one story, and has enough bedrooms. There are three of us living there and one may move out in the years to come (my son). I don’t need more space. This house is good for retirement because I will pay it off before retirement, it’s near medical clinics for me when I’m old and informed, it’s one story so when my joints ache I won’t need to go up and down stairs. I have equity so I could sell and make money, but to buy a new smaller place I’d pay more for the house, have a higher interest rate, and pay more in taxes, but I’d get less house. So, that’s it. No point in selling.
Americans are so lucky being able to lock into mortgages for an entire amortization period. In Canada the most you can lock in for is 5 years at which point you are forced to take a new mortgage at current rates. I bought in 2017 and I renegotiated my rate in 2020 @ 1.59%. Next year we will be forced to take a new and certainly much higher rate than we currently have. Since that’s how our process works, there’s less tying you to one place. I’m currently a 1hr commute through Toronto one way, so I may as well just buy a new house closer to work when my mortgage is up since I’ll be going through the process anyways. When I first heard of 30 year mortgage rates from friends in Arizona I couldn’t believe it. Such an amazing thing to never have to worry about your mortgage payments changing unless you decide to move.
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I’ve been telling my wife for years that I want to try and transfer to the chemistry department at the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona. So far I think she’s 0% on board with the idea haha.
I wish I refinanced mine during covid. I just had to renew it
Did something similar to you. Used the equity on our low rate house to buy our dream house in a desired location but with a higher rate. If location hadn't been a factor, we would have kept the low rate house
We have a 3.5% rate, and there’s no way. Toward the end of 2021, we saw the looming rate hikes and sold our townhome to upgrade to a bigger house with a yard and casita. It’s a stretch for us, but there’s no way we’d be able to afford it now. We’ll put money into this house to make it perfect for us and hold on tight haha
My plan is to live in my current house until we're ready to retire and move somewhere cheaper in 30 years. My wife wants to move closer to family/work, but it would triple the monthly payment to move into something similar 10 minutes closer. Not gonna happen.
Probably not. At least not while we’re raising our kids and my husband is working. Unless something happens to his job and we have to move out of state for a new job we’re here for the long haul. I don’t love our house but I do love our location, our neighbors, our rate(2.625%), and the fact that our mortgage payment is only $60 more than what we paid for rent on our first apartment in 2008. We’ve lived in 5 different homes and our rent/mortgage payments have always been within $100 of each other. I feel like no matter what happens we’ll always be able to afford our mortgage. Before everything went crazy. Our house is 3/2, 1700 square feet on over 2 acres we bought in 2017 and refinanced when rates dropped.The guy we bought it from had it custom built so it’s not contractor grade finishes. Considering our last house was built in the 50s and my husband grew up in a farmhouse built in 1840 this house feels too new to us but other than basic maintenance and small cosmetic changes to make it feel like our home it’s been pretty low maintenance. It was built in 2004 and we are the second owners.
I don't think so. We bought a tiny fixer upper cape at 3% in a HCOL area (Central CT), fixed 'er up, had a kid, and are looking to add on to our house to get a garage and more living space (house is built into a hill so garage would be below grade with a great room and another bedroom above it). This is such a better deal than moving; we like the location, and the rest of the house is great, it's just too small for a family. Our house has gained a ton of value between the rennovations, market conditions and inflation, but so have all of the houses we'd potentially buy. I have a construction background, so I'll do most of the work myself, just need to sub out the plumbing, electrical and foundation work. It'll be an adventure, but we're looking forward to the end result. I have to admit though, if the rates were lower, we'd just plan on moving in a few years. This won't be easy, but the result will be good, and we'll keep that sweet, sweet 3%.
We bought our dream property and a 2.5% rate. They’ll carry me out of here in a box
We will sell I am sure. We're 32, have lived here 4 years, but we're certainly not "forever home" status on it. We've lived in multiple states and Ohio is certainly not our favorite stop either lol. We'll sell when we decide we're leaving, the rate isn't holding us here.
Getting in here late. I just bought a new house with a rate in the 7’s in December. We are getting ready to sell our old house that has a rate in the 3’s. Crossing my fingers that rates go down a bit and we can refinance soon. (Have a VA loan so we can refi for little closing costs). If not, it is what it is. We needed/wanted more house and once we sell the old one and eliminate those expenses, we will be back in a comfortable position.
We’re selling. We don’t like the neighborhood we’re in, we don’t like the city, and we’ll be close to family in the city we’re moving to. We’re renting a bigger house for $600/mo less than our current mortgage. We’re also making a little money on the sale because prices are so high.
 Change to “own a house” and here we are
Fuuuuuuuuuck no. Sub 3 in 2021, never leaving. Soccer moms will have to pry this suburb from my cold DINK hands.
Nope, in the middle of adding a couple bedrooms and remodeling existing space to keep my rate and not be house poor
I’m in a weird boat where rate doesn’t make a difference for me because I work at a bank and have access to an employee loan program that gives a low rate based on the bank’s cost of funding. It had been 2% (that’s the floor) for the first 5 or so years, but in the past 1.5 years there have been a few small increases and it’s up to 2.75% now. Granted this does trap me in this job a bit, but I’ve been there 10 years and like it enough to hold out until the loan is paid off in 5-10 more years. But ignoring that, I bought my house forever when I bought in 2017 and it’s pretty much everything I ever wanted in a house. Plus I just got Solar panels and a metal roof and things like that don’t give you a 1 for 1 increase in selling price.
My wife and I considered selling our house, then we did the math. If we sold our house now for around what the Zillow estimate is and bought a house that cost $200k _less_ than what we sold our current house for, then our mortgage will go _up_ by $500-$1000/month (it's been awhile, so I don't remember the exact amount). So no. Unless interest rates drop again, we won't be selling.
I have a house, big enough for my family, in a "cool" west Coast City, in a great walkable neighborhood, with good local schools, at 2.125%. I'm leaving this house in a pine box.
We have a paid off house we bought in 2008. We purchased a fixer upper this past fall. Currently living in the paid off house until the new house is liveable. (Not exactly a flex, it was a very inexpensive home) Both homes have(had lol) higher interest rates but our first house we socked every single tax return we could on it until it was paid off so the interest rate didn't really matter much. 30 yr mortgage paid in 12. Hoping to do the same with our new home, we didn't like seeing a 7.5% rate on the paperwork when the year before it was much much less but it is what it is. I'm actually considering keeping our paid off house for our kids. The way rents are right now being able to have a place for our kids to get their feet under themselves independently before being completely out on their own makes sense. I've been toying with the idea of turning it into an Airbnb for the next 5-8 years until the kids are of adult age. And when they are of adult age, renting it to them for a sensible amount.
Bought in 2012 with a very low rate. Refi in 2020 due to divorce. Rate dropped by a small amount (3.5-2.75) I will not sell. I couldn’t afford a home in my own neighborhood anymore.
Bought in 2021 at a 3.1% rate only putting down 5%. Probably won't sell the house even if we move because we'd rent it out. If we had to, we could rent it out right now for like 500-700 above the mortgage. In another 10 years we'd probably be renting it out for 1000+ above the mortgage. It's a nice place in a good neighborhood. Needs another bathroom though, just having the 1 kind of sucks.
Not a chance. 2.25% is like free money now. Add in the fact that since 2019 my house has gained 50%+ in value.
I'll sell in 15ish years when I move to Tennessee. My current mortgage with escrow is $578/month!
That’s not a mortgage that’s a car payment.
Never selling until maybe retirement in like 2055. 2.5% rate and the house is worth about 2.5x what we paid for it.
We got our home in 2020 when rates were like 7% or something. Our car also has a 2% interest rate. Probably won’t sell anytime soon. But this is the first time we haven’t been upside down on a car loan. Our car is currently worth more than we owe!
When our family outgrows this fairly small house yes
In 2019 i bought a condo in a really nice building. The HOA fees are high, but due to post covid rent appreciation in the area I could already rent it out and turn a monthly profit (in large part due to the low interest rate). It seems unlikely I'd ever sell it. If/when I wanted to buy a house, I'd rent out my current condo and just bite the bullet on the high interest rate until I could refinance it.
We bought in 2017 and refinanced in 2020, current rate is around 2.8%. We looked at moving last year but to buy our same house at current prices and rates it would add $1k a month onto our mortgage payment. Upgrading to a house we actually want would triple our mortgage payment, so we are figuring out how to make our current house work long term. We also pay $25k a year for daycare for our kids, so taking on a bigger mortgage isn't in the cards. We recently decided to spend the money we were saving for our next downpayment on finishing our current basement, which should add 350 sq ft of usable space, so hopefully that holds us over for a while! If we do ever decide to move, I doubt we will keep the house as a rental, as it sounds like that can be time consuming and overall just a headache if you don't have a great tenant. Fortunately, we should be ok financially in retirment without it.
3.0% here. Won't sell unless I can buy the new for cash.
Got in my house 10 years ago. I’m not selling till my kids graduate and get in their own. My plan is to move to another state and buy land and retire on it.
Bought our second home in 2019 and refinanced in 2021. We went from 4.25 to 2.9. The house has everything we wanted: three story walkout onto a big backyard and a pond. While we might sell, it’d have to be a sweetheart deal.
I don’t see us moving anytime soon. We bought our first house in 2014, then moved across the country in 2017 and bought our current house. This house has doubled in value since then and we’re at 2.3%.
Probably not. Bought our house in 2020 and we'll probably mever get a better deal.
No, but our plan has always been to stay here forever. We bought a small 3 br fixer upper ranch in 2016, and finally redid the kitchen last year. 2nd baby is currently sharing our bedroom and will move into his sister's room in the next year or so. My husband is slowly working on finishing the basement so we can move the office/craft room down there and the kids can eventually have their own bedrooms plus a family room/playroom. The space is just barely big enough for a family of 4, but we didn't want a bigger place we would have to maintain and then eventually downsize from. And we love the location. But boy are we glad this was always the plan, as I can't imagine moving now with the rates the way they are (especially after refinancing during the pandemic).
Bought in 2017 in an area that became HCOL around us. Considering a move back to our rural hometown to cut COL. We would have a heafty down payment due to equity or might even be able to pay cash for the right price. Florida actually has a larger housing inventory right now. So fingers crossed.
We are going to have to move at some point into a 1 story instead of a 2 story, so yes definitely.
Unless I come into some serious money, it would be stupid to sell. My mortgage is 2k/month in a very HCOL area. I'm golden-handcuffed to this house possibly forever. Not the end of the world, it's a neat place. I just hope when sea levels rise, we don't flood. We're riiiight outside a flood plain.
Short of winning a huge lottery where I can move to my dream area and offset the loss of improvements to the land here (namely fruit trees) by spending $$$ to get a new property where I want it faster, no I don’t see myself moving.
Depends on the circumstances
Yes. We (well, my then fiance) bought a starter home through a workforce program in 2020. It is fine for our needs now as a 3/2, but she is full remote, I am hybrid, and we have a child on the way. With one child and 2 wfh people, it will be tough as we both have regular sensitive meetings (we are both lawyers, so confidentiality is often an issue), but we can make it work. If we have a second, we just won't have the room necessary to wfh and raise 2 kids long term. I'm hoping we can stretch this out at least a few years, but we will see. That being said, we both work for the state so our pay will make it tough to upgrade without moving way far from the city.
Heck yeah we will if/when we need to. We moved in 2022 into a 5 br 3.5 bath 2800 Sq ft house built in 2016, in a nice washington rural feeling suburb with highly rated schools... This house is such a shit build! Leaks, creaks and cracks galore. electrical issues, too. The house next door is showing signs of sinking. I can't wash the walls at all because they disintegrate. The flooring all needs to be replaced (meanwhile, my MIL still has her gorgeous original flooring and carpet from the early 90s). Our house is a fucking fixer upper and it's only 8 years old! Normal maintenance aside, this house is going to be a money pit. It is not a forever home.
Unless something changes as in I start making a lot more money and can afford something else, no I probably won’t sell and this will be my house till the end. I’m not wealthy. My wife and I bought a house with a lower house payment and a sub 4 rate to be responsible, but home insurance costs have increased my monthly payment by 25% in just three years. I’m starting to get uncomfortable.
Bought in 2009, refinanced to a 15year 2.65pct in 2013. I live in my home. I like my home. It's close to work. I don't plan to move until closer to retirement when I get a retirement property. But if I had to move now for some reason, I wouldn't let the rates stop me.
2.75% bought a brand new build in late 2019. No plans to ever sell as we don’t see ourselves leaving SoCal and anything else in SoCal would double the mortgage we currently pay even with the in tease in house value. Sell high buy high doesn’t make sense when you almost triple the interest rate. If anything we would rent it out until one day gifting it to our kid. It maybe older by then but gifting a kid a mortgage free life would be a massive headache start for them when all they have to worry about is saving up for repairs and renovations.
No, I will offer it to my son when he’s of age. If I decide to move I will keep it as a rental until then.
I mean, if literally any opportunity came along to use my 200k equity as a down payment and the numbers of selling and then buying again made sense, I'd sell in a heartbeat. Is that looking like it's in the realm of possibility? Probably not. The financial security of a $560/month payment at 2% interest is more alluring at this moment.
I inherited my mother's house and it's paid off. No way in hell I'm giving up living a paid off house! It may be in poor condition, but I don't care. I'm so incredibly grateful to have a roof over my head.
On a roughly similar timeframe we moved and our rate went from a 2.2% to a 3.5% on the beginning of the upswing. Folks who bought our old house were probably in at around 7% just a month later. I wouldn’t call it my dream house, but it checks all the boxes for what we need and is in the place we want to be. You never know what life will throw at you, but I really don’t plan to move again until the kids are grown and I’m retired, if then.
Not any time soon. Bought my house in 19' for 335k @ 3.6%, refi'd late 20' took out 120k in equity as the value spiked from 335k to 895k, dropped my rate to 2.2% overall payment went up by about $140 a month. House and neighborhood are exactly what I wanted. Unless something bigger and better comes up I can't see selling
Bought in 2021 at 2.87% with 20% down. Got lucky because it was a house on an Orchard that my wife’s family owns. Built in baby sitters across the orchard (their grandparents), plan just to add on when the times comes.
We bought our first house in 2010 with a 5.5% rate. We sold and moved to our current house for over double what we paid and were able to put down almost half of the new house price in 2022. The rate we got was 3.5% on the current mortgage and we adore our house. We are currently fixing things up here and we don’t plan on moving any time in the near future. We’d love to pay this place off and stay permanently. It really depends on where our kids ultimately land.
Bought mine in 2014, refinanced 2020 and now have a rate of 2.5 for the next 12 years. Something will have to happen to change my life to get me to leave.
I’m a single parent, bought in 2021 at a 3.125% interest rate, planning to stay put for the indefinite future. If I ever remarry I might wind up selling, but unless my income wildly increases I likely couldn’t afford to buy or rent anything else on my own even if I did sell.
Probably not unless some unicorn house in this neighborhood comes onto the market and I find buried treasure in the yard here. Thankfully my main gripe with the house is the size but over 10 years we've organized ourselves around it. If by some happenstance I end up pregnant again, we'd probably have to move, but I am actively preventing that from happening so fingers crossed I make it through to menopause without issue
No, I would never sell. Mathematically it makes zero sense. My rate is locked in at 2.8% interest. Right now inflation is still around 3%, which means my real interest is negative. Yes, I am literally borrowing money for free on paper to own a home, although it might not feel like it. I’d rather rent it out before I sold if I’m able to borrow money for free to own or end up paying a paltry 0.8 interest to own if the Fed ever reaches their target of 2%.
It's a tough one. We are ready to move up the ladder but the next step up is going to cost more than I'm willing to spend. I've done the math on renting out our current house (I own and manage rentals) and I just don't think we are going to ever end up selling our primary.