Buying A Home
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Need advice - buying/selling...
Our townhouse is currently on the market for $20k less than what we paid in 2003. If we could sell it for our asking price, we'd break even after paying realtor fees and taxes. We LOVE a house that is at the low end of our price range, has tons of potential and it's somewhere we could live forever. Before the market crashed, this house sold for $100k more than what we would pay.
Is it worth dropping our price again, losing potentially another $5-$7k to get into a house we love?
We have enough to cover the difference and still maintain our emergency fund, but I wouldn't consider us wealthy.
I'm just so confused.
Re: Need advice - buying/selling...
That's really only a question you can answer.
We sold our house and forked over 10K at closing. It was a pretty hefty sum for us. We rented for six months, and then bought a house.
I wouldn't have changed a thing. Thanks to the low interest rates, we're paying around 150 more a month for a house that is double the size of our last one.
As pp mentioned, only you can answer that. We took a chance and jumped on a house we loved and had been watching for a long time. While we did sell our previous home for less than we would've liked, we realized that the market isn't great, and that we took advantage of it on the buy side as well.
Ditto PP. It all depends on what is important to you. I just this week forked over $22k to sell a house I already had $40k in but I also bought a house that is 2.5 times the size of our old house, with a yard that is 10 times the size, in a dream neighborhood and our new mortgage is only $400 more a month. We previously never would have been able to get into this house so we lost on one but seriously gained on the other so it is worth it to us!
If you are moving 'up' (i.e. to a more expensive, longer term house), then generally yes, getting a lower interest rate at a cheaper price on a 'forever' house is worth losing 5-7K on your home. As long as that house isn't a 'money pit'.
My realtor put it in these terms - you are taking a 5K loss, but think about the loss the owners of your new house are taking.
If you have money to cover the difference, it is probably worth it - I know it hurts though.
I know we would be out of our current home if it was a matter of only bringing $5-7K to the table.
ETA: I understand your hesitation. I get sick every time I think about the money we have put into this house that we will never see again. However, if you are able to buy right away at the depreciated values and will be in the new house long enough to see the market recover, then you will get some of the loss money back down the road.