Saturday, May 26, 2018

Time to Sell Our House? Part 2

Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's post!  You all gave me several things to think about.  Our main impetus for moving are:

  • There's too many people in Las Vegas!  The city gets about 50,000 people moving here each year.  We can really tell that traffic has increased, houses are being built everywhere, crime is increasing, and it's just generally too busy here.
  • There is some concern about future water supply.  We live in a desert, get only a small slice of Colorado River water, yet people continue to flock here.  Our water reservoir is literally drying up!
  • We would like to move to our "forever house" while we are still able to move ourselves.  We would like a single story house, and would like to be active enough to do most of the moving ourselves (we recently had friends who are near 80 pack up their 2500 sq ft house prior to a move...color me surprised at their energy and strength to do this!).
  • It would be great to take the equity in our home and pay cash for a new house.  This means we would need to move somewhere that has a lower cost for housing (ie: Tennessee where new houses can be bought for under $150k as opposed to Seattle where new homes start at $777k!). 
  • We would also like to live closer to the kids who all live on the East Coast.  
On the other hand:
  • The weather here is perfect--even in the middle of summer.  Everywhere else we have considered moving to has snow, ice, torrential rain, etc.  Hubby is very clear that he doesn't want to shovel snow or slip on the ice and break a hip!  eeekkk
  • Life here is soooo easy.  I don't need to work since we can easily live frugally here, there is so much--mostly free--entertainment here 24/7, property tax and utilities here are very cheap, and there is shopping and great restaurants everywhere here.
  • There are no natural disasters here.  The west coast has earthquakes, the deep south has hurricanes, the mid south has tornadoes, and our friends in New England had a seemingly unending winter with snow for months this past winter.
  • We already have a lot of friends here.  While I am used to a small town where you literally know everyone, we do know quite a few people here already and settling into a new place would mean finding new social groups to join and new friends to make.
  • Hubby hates change.  How I got him to sell nearly everything we owned and travel for a couple years nearly a decade ago is beyond me.  These days he likes his routine.  He doesn't even want to travel anymore as the hassle and headaches of traveling make it less and less appealing as we get older.
I'm sure we will continue to debate this issue a while longer...

3 comments:

  1. Seems to me the reasons for staying far outweigh the reasons for moving. Why not consider looking for a single story home where you are, but further from the city where it's less crowded?

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    1. You're right there are a lot of good reasons for staying. The houses here are nice but now most are at $300k for a good neighborhood. Unfortunately the next nearest town is an hour away!

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  2. I live in northern third of AL. Really, tornadoes are not that bad unless they strike you. We know when to take shelter. Las Vegas has to transport water, right? We have 60 inches per year here.

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