s/o rent vs own - would you?

ecinereb

Would you trade where you live for a cheaper mortgage?

Would you trade your cheaper mortgage to live in a different area/city?

Obviously higher COL has it's pros and con's and so does lower COL.

carcrashheart

i have come to learn that we live in a LCOL area. we don't own at the moment but the house we did own had a very low mortgage compared to what seems like most everyone else i have met online. and no, we would not trade to live anywhere else. we just moved back here because it is where we want to be. if we leave again it will be for an even bigger city and a very large salary bump and promotion for DH.

seahorse01

I wouldn't want to ever live somewhere rural, so I think my answer is probably no.

thecuddleeffect

My mortgage is high but I am in an amazing small town with a stellar high ranked, yet small school system smack dab in the middle of my parents and my ILs. So while living in a LCOL area would be nice, I wouldnt ever want to move away from our families. 

iwalktheline

I love living in MA, so I don't think I could ever move... Though I do wish I could magically make it a LCOL area!

brij2006

We already did the big city thing with a higher cost of living. We both miss being in Chicago, but we are much more ahead financially from moving back to our hometown. Even though we've given up quite a bit if luxuries in order to do so.
Although we have said that if we aren't pregnant in the next 5 years, then we will likely move to a big city again and become career oriented people. Our small town is very family oriented, and we're already "old parents" to them.

cinderin

I don't think I could ever live anywhere other than the Seattle area. If we did, it would just be if we had to and we would move back as soon as we could. It is a hcol area, but that's because it is so great, so many people want to live here.

ILoveRedVino

We live in the city and it is expensive. We love our house and location but will move when kids come along- a) for better schools but also for the lower cost of living (so that we can still travel, go out to dinner, etc).

PinkinProvence

I could never imagine moving from where we live - not only are our careers here but so are our immediate and extended family.  Watching TV shows like Househunters literally makes us sick to our stomach though.  What we pay montly for mortgage and taxes to live in NYC suburb seems to be what other areas pay in a year.  Oh well, wehave a beatiful home, but we work extremely long hours in stressfuls jobs to do cover the costs and still have a social life with travelling.  But boy do we have fantasies of picking up our entire families and moving to a LCOL city (we could never do rural!)

transponster

I grew up in the country on a farm, and it's lovely to go back to, but I wouldn't live there now. I enjoy being in the city, and even then it's not as expensive as some other cities. We'll move to where everyone else is in the near future, but I don't think we'll be leaving Nebraska unless we really needed to. And even then, we'd move to Denver.

LuckyAngel07

We're in the most expensive county in PA. When we bought our house, it was important to keep my work commute reasonable, which is one of the reasons we bought where we did. Of course, I'm not working there anymore, and it would take me the same amount of time to commute to work from a less expensive area, but a move like that at this point wouldn't make sense.

DH and I have been seriously considering a move to the Pensacola area for the last couple of months. It's going to take us some time to make that happen (I just got a promotion at work and I want to see through this edition of our publication; the house needs quite a bit of sprucing up before I'd be comfortable listing it), but the cost of living there is sooooo much less expensive than it is here, it's a GORGEOUS area with a fantastic school system. And although it's 1000 miles away from DH's family and most of mine, my mom, little brothers, and my sister and her family would all be just an hour or two away. 

So yeah...we definitely want to live somewhere else. Somewhere more affordable for sure. And while DH would love rural, I could never handle it. It definitely needs to be somewhere suburban, and it'd be nice if it could be close to a major city (although I don't think that's really going to happen in the panhandle area).

nfp147

There are other cities that I would consider moving to, but DH and I would never find the same jobs with the same pay and benefits that we have now. So, there's little chance we'd move.  

We really enjoy the city and wouldn't move to a rural area.  I grew up in a very small town in the north, so I know what rural living is like.  It has its good points (more of a sense of community, etc), but it's not for me.  DH grew up in Toronto, so rural living would be hard for him!

PandPMeant2B

DH and I can't wait to move! Right now we're renting, but looking to buy because we're "stuck" here for at least 5 years, when his son turns 18 (DH and his ex have 50/50 custody).  We live in a big town, but it has that small town feel (which is both good and bad). It's one of those towns that people either leave right after high school/college or never leave (DH and most of his friends grew up here). I don't hate it, but it's not where we want to be.  Some of his family lives close, so that's nice, but we want to move to NC, where he also has family. 

As of now, the COL where we are is about the same, maybe a little higher, as where we want to move.  Our plan is to buy something small here and then build our dream/forever home when we move.  But we all know what happens to plans....

Sewilson33

I would move out of NY in a heart beat and move to NC or FL. The amount a house my size costs in those states is almost half of what a house in NY sells for.

wiggyslilsis

We want to move to VA or NC (we are still researching areas) but we want to move to about the same COL area. It is pret

wiggyslilsis

Posted before I was done...

It is a pretty LCOL area here. So we are looking to move but not because of COL.

Flamingo86

No, I would not. We live in a HCOL area but I love it here.

amandaf6383

I love living in MA too much to ever leave, even if it saved us money. Tom travels for work a lot and often goes to TX. One of the higher ups in TX has tried relentlessly to persuade us to move there. I almost had a heart attack when Tom showed me some of the houses there that cost what ours did - they were soooo big and fancy!!

But we just can't.

GoodWolf

We live in a fairly LCOL area that we love, so probably not. (I'm happy I can finally say that!)

Flamingo86

amandaf6383 said:

I love living in MA too much to ever leave, even if it saved us money. Tom travels for work a lot and often goes to TX. One of the higher ups in TX has tried relentlessly to persuade us to move there. I almost had a heart attack when Tom showed me some of the houses there that cost what ours did - they were soooo big and fancy!!

But we just can't.

This. My husband has had to opportunity to move to the South for work and you can buy a 3000 sq foot house with a pool for 250k there. That might buy a tiny old condo here. I just can't do it though. This is home.

rccola1981

We live in an area of PA known for low taxes and col...but it is where we both have family and we love our house. We most likely will move when we inherit our parents homes, but hopefully that's long aways

blueeyedblossom

We would like to stay near Saint Louis, but eventually be in an area where we can have some land. That will be a long while from now though.

poppies717

We love where we are. We could never leave this area, despite its HCOL.