Watching the Housing Market

We have been casually looking for other places to move to over the past year, mostly to get out of a big and growing bigger every day city.  It seems to be a very good time to make our move as our local news keeps noting that the housing market may be getting too hot--like to the point of imploding like it did here about ten years ago.  

Back then there were so many buyers bidding up the prices of houses and there was so much building (in addition to other financial shenanigans like maxing out home equity loans and offering home loans to people who in no way could afford them) that it eventually reached a critical point and the market imploded.  Over less than a year many houses lost half of their value or more which then caused a lot of foreclosures and people just walking away from homes that they owed much more on that what they were worth.

We bought a house here when housing values were nearly at their lowest and since then our house has more than doubled in value.  We would love to sell our house here and use the proceeds from the sale to pay cash for a new house in a place where homes are much cheaper.

So far it looks like the south may be the place to go.  Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina all seem to have a lot of new houses being built with prices that are half the cost of buying a similar house here (like a four bed, three bath house for $250k which would now cost upwards of $450k here).  I guess that is sort of "playing the market" when it comes to housing but to be retired with a completely paid off house seems like a very good move to me!  Now to decide where to move to...

Downsizing...Or Upsizing?

I came across this article today about people downsizing their homes as they age.  We did this when we moved from Seattle.  We wanted a smaller house and a smaller yard so that we would have more time to spend on life and need less time to spend on home maintenance and upkeep.

Fast forward to living in Las Vegas where after we downsized we now think we should have upsized a bit due to how many of our friends and family come to the vacation destination we live in to both see us and see all of the tourist attractions here!  As we look for another place to live, the question to upsize or downsize is one of our considerations.  Among the things we are thinking about:

• Cost.  Due to the booming housing market here we have a significant amount of equity in our current home.  If we sell then move to an area with much cheaper housing we would be able to pay cash for a new house.  That would be awesome, budget-wise.  On the other hand, if we want to stay in the general Las Vegas area, that big piece of equity would not make such a huge difference because of the high house prices here.
• Property taxes.  We love the property tax situation in Nevada (low) so moving elsewhere in Nevada--or several other states we are considering--would be good.  Many places also offer property tax rebates for both seniors and veterans which we qualify for.  Other states we have looked at, however, have really high property taxes and no rebates which would definitely put a crimp in our budget.
• Size of home.  We know now that living in a popular tourist destination means a bigger home is more comfortable for large groups of visitors.  I also like more space--although it isn't REALLY necessary but nice to have--in order to do more things in the space (like have an exercise room, an office, etc).  This is kind of a conundrum, however, since a more spacious house is nice to have, but on the flip side, everything from utilities to maintenance costs more (new flooring, for example, is much cheaper for a 1500 square foot house than a 3000 square foot house; and it's cheaper to air condition a small house than a large house).
• Cost of living.  Each place we have looked at has a variety of cost-of-living factors to consider.  The area we are looking at in Tennessee has cheap FIBER internet (wow!), another place has very expensive utilities (gas, electricity, water), in another places all of the houses are on well and septic tanks (very cheap until one of these systems fail then very expensive). 

So in addition to deciding where to move geographically, we are also looking at a range of other factors about the specific kind of house to move to.  It's a work in progress...

Looking for a New Place to Live

We (mostly me) have been looking for a new place to move to.  With a population of 2.1 million people and growing exponentially every month, Las Vegas is just getting too crowded.  There is too much crime, too much traffic, and not nearly enough nice people here.

Last week we went to Pahrump to check out the town.  On the plus side, they had a lot of brand new houses at a reasonable prices, the town was small (30k people?), and it is close enough to access the amenities of Las Vegas (it's about 45 minutes away from Vegas).  On the down side, their municipal water system is probably going to be polluted with nuclear waste water soon.  Eeekkkk

Today we headed north to check out Mesquite.  It is a pretty town, very quiet, and is known as a retirement area (the average age in the town is OLD).  If you like golf (we don't play) this would probably be the perfect place to live as there are golf courses everywhere and people can play nearly 365 days a year.  It's also legal there to drive your golf cart on town streets so many people get around this way!  New homes are more expensive and all are in HOAs, they had really low prices at their casino restaurants, and everyone there was soooo friendly but overall it was a big no way for hubby (he said it looked like God's waiting room, someone to park him until he dies.  Eeekkkk).

So we will keep looking for our perfect place to live...

Painting is Done...Kind Of

We had a friend of a friend come over today and paint the trim that the HOA insisted we get done within the next couple weeks.  Fortunately the guy did a great job and it cost $700 less than the first estimate we got from another painter.  Unfortunately the newly painted fascia trim now doesn't match the trim around the windows so we may need to get the guy back and do the window trim.  Usually the HOA has a paint code so you know that the paint you buy will match the original paint but our HOA didn't have this code and just said "color match it".  Easier said than done when you are trying to match paint that has been baking in the Las Vegas sun for 10 years.  Ayayay

10 Things I Learned from Our Home Buying Experience

Finally, I think this will be the last post about buying a house for a while but here are a bunch of things I have learned through this whole process...

1. I don't get excited about owning a new house until the keys are in my hands.  After 14 offers it was hard to be excited about anything because the deals fell through so often it was better to not get set on a certain house until we actually owned it.
2. Be patient.  A lot has changed since we bought our last house over a decade ago.  The mountain of paperwork, the documentation, the process of buying a short sale or repo house which is common now, all mean that the entire process of buying a house takes much longer than before and there are ALWAYS glitches that come up.
3. Know what you are doing if you want to buy a fixer upper.  We offered on quite a few fixers because they were so cheap but even though the hubby and I built a small house from the ground up years ago and know how to do fixer upper repairs, we were SO HAPPY that we could move into our new house and do no work.  So, so happy.  I think when we were making the offers we thought we wouldn't mind doing a lot more physical labor and wouldn't mind living in a half-finished house but with age comes wisdom (and a certain reluctance to do hard physical labor and live in a dusty, messy half-finished house for months on end).
4. Have a separate  fund for your new house (not your emergency fund and not your down payment fund).  For the past week money has been streaming out of our savings account like water through a leaky boat.  There are SO MANY things you need to buy for a new place (nails to hang pictures, pillows that match the sofa, deposits for utilities, etc) that it has basically decimated our emergency fund so, note to self, next time build up a separate fund for new house expenses.  
5. It pays to be handy or have handy friends.  There were a lot of things we got free or provided for ourselves that other people would probably need to pay for.  Among these things: appliance delivery (free from our cousin), hooking up the gas dryer (hubby and I did it ourselves), replacing a broken light switch (hubby did this), moving everything to our new house (hubby and I did this), etc.  If you can't or don't want to do these things for yourself you may need even more money on hand to pay for these things.
6. I LOVE the Goodwill and the Dollar Store.  We bought a ton of things for our new place at these two stores.  Walmart came in a close third.  After selling nearly everything we owned over a year ago and realizing all of the cute things I bought at Macy's and other department stores (home decor, sheets, dishes, etc) were worth pennies on the dollar at our garage sales, I will only buy used or super cheap things from now on.
7. It is SOOOO nice to move when you don't have a lot of junk.  Because we did pare down our stuff when we decided to travel and store what was left in a 10x10 storage unit, moving was much easier since we had much less stuff to move.  I've known people who have moved their entire household including 30 years of stuff to a new place and years later they still aren't completely unpacked.
8. When you move to a new place, it really helps to ask people (like our cousins, our realtor, and our new friends who live in the area) about local stuff that may be different than where you came from.  On the second day in our house a big bug walked across the kitchen and I nearly freaked out (I don't like bugs).  I immediately called our realtor and she said it was common for bugs to try to come in where it was cool during the hot summer so to spray the house for bugs and that would take care of the problem.  In cold and rainy Washington we had the occasional spider but never any bugs so I got hubby on bug spray detail ASAP.  Now today I plan to ask the neighbor about the watering system.  It rains so much in Washington that we didn't water outside very often but now we have an entire irrigation system that seems pretty complicated so I need to figure out how the thing works as our landscaping looks pretty parched.
9. Location is important.  When we were desperate and frustrated with the home buying process we made offers on a couple of places that were in less than stellar neighborhoods and a couple of places that were pretty far away from where we wanted to be.  I'm glad those offers fell through because I have now realized how important a good neighborhood and a good, close-to-where-we-want-to-be location is.  Plus this will also save us a lot of gas and mileage on our car over the years we live in this house.
10. Finally, decide if you really want or need to buy a house.  While I think our new house is wonderful, I kind of miss the freedom that renting affords (plus the lower cost with not having to pay utilities, maintenance, etc).  It will be much harder for us to pick up and leave if we want to do any extended travel now that we own a home but at this point, hubby wanted to feel more settled so buying a house did this for him.  I guess this point comes down to where you are in your life and what your plans are for the foreseeable future.

Overall I am really happy with our new house and how things have worked out.

p.s.  I told hubby that July will be a "no spend" month since we have been hemorrhaging cash for the past couple of weeks!

Finally! We've Moved Into Our New House!

It's been a busy week, thus the lack of posts.  Here's what's been happening:

• Last Monday.  We sign some papers and are supposed to close on the house so we wait...and wait.  Finally around 5pm we sign a one day extension because the house isn't going to close on Monday.
• Last Tuesday.  We are really, really going to close today.  The realtor said we would get the keys at 10am but after the paper work shuffle we finally get the keys at 2pm.  Did I mention that by 2pm it was like 108 degrees here?  That's OK, we were psyched so the hubby and I started moving everything out of the condo.  We think we can move in to our new house entirely in one day.  Eventually we realize we aren't 25 years old any more.  We continue moving stuff until about 11pm.
• Last Wednesday.  We are still psyched but wake up like very old people complete with screaming muscles (which hadn't been used in a couple of years!) and lots of groaning.  We get everything out of the condo, clean up the condo, then use the pictures we took of the condo when we moved in to reset all of the cousin's furnishings in the condo.  By now we decide that we don't want to move again.  Ever.
• Last Thursday.  We head over to the furniture outlet store and buy a recliner sofa on clearance for $399, and over-stuffed chair which had been marked down from $700 to $99, a queen bed for the guest room which was on sale for $199, and a chair and ottoman for our bedroom for $149.  For an extra $100 they will deliver which we quickly agree to as we were really not looking forward to moving any more furniture.
• Last Friday.  The cousin gets her gardeners to bring over the washer, dryer, table, and refrigerator which we had bought from her for the bargain price of $600.  We also do a massive amount of shopping at the $1 store, Walmart, and the Goodwill for all of the little things we need for our house (everything from shower curtains to end tables to wall art to trash cans, etc).
• Last Saturday.  I was so excited to cook on a gas stove as we had never had gas appliance before.  Nearly everything has been set up but we are still working--hard labor style--for about 12 hours each day.  Yikes.  I do laundry then hang it in the garage in order to save money.  Even with fabric softener, our clothes come out stiff and starchy :I  
• Last Sunday.  After a massive amount of work getting all of the boxes emptied, our newly purchased things set, pictures hung, etc, we are officially "done" moving in.  We have left a few things not done until we can get the cash to pay for them, namely shower doors which will cost about $200 each, art for the walls, curtains, and a small bar that hubby wants to get for the kitchen.
• Today...Monday!  The house is done and we are back to our regular schedule of hubby playing poker and me going to the library to catch up on my blogs and websites (we have decided to not get internet at the house and use it for free at the library in order to save money since I am here nearly every day anyway).

Here's some pictures of our new house:

We're Moving! Finally! I Think!

We signed the last of the closing documents today for our house and wired the money to the escrow account so I think that makes it almost, nearly, official that we will be moving.  We are supposed to get the keys on Monday and hubby is so psyched he already has the van packed with the first load of stuff to deliver to the house.  We had a slight glitch yesterday when we went to the signing.  The lender said we would need to wire $1200 at closing so we were ready for that but when we got to the title company office the bottom line was $2800 and I nearly fell off my chair.  After (a lot) of complaining (by me) the lender, realtor, and title company lady said they would get back to us this morning and somehow that figure dropped back to $1200 so we immediately wired the money and now I think everyone is happy (especially us as $1600 extra dollars is a BIG DEAL when you are living on a limited income).  Whew.  I think we may live here forever as the process of buying a house is way too stressful to look forward to doing this again!

Hopefully I Won't Have to Bore You Much Longer With House Updates...

But for this week, I will bore you a bit more.  Here's what we have been doing of late (which is mostly waiting):

• The lender called and said he needed a paper from Social Security about hubby's monthly SS payments.  We thought we would be on the doorstep of the Social Security office this morning and be the first in line to get the document the lender needed.  We were SHOCKED that over a hundred people had the same idea and that the line wound around the building and out in the parking lot!  Fortunately since we only needed a simple print-out we ended up in the speed line and were done within a half hour.
• We were happy that the lender called and said that the bank that owns the house will accept the lower appraised value price on the house.  So instead of $125,000 for the house we will get it for $119,500 (and this reduces our payments by $30).  We also locked in our interest rate a while back and it is 3.75%--I've never in my life seen an interest rate that low!  The house will be on a 30 year term but there is no prepayment penalty so we will try to pay it off within eight to ten years.
• We are supposed to sign the closing documents on Thursday and then will get the keys about 48 hours later (because of the weekend that means we should get the keys on Monday or Tuesday).
• We have to bring cash (actually a bank transfer) to closing which is something we have never had to do. While most of the closing costs are taken care of (the VA pays a lot of closing costs for veteran's home loans) and it is a $0 down loan, there are still some closing costs that weren't covered so we will need to pay around $1000 at closing.  We have never had to do this before because usually the seller has paid all of the closing costs but the lender said that with bank-owned homes, they don't do this. Bummer...I could have used that money for something better, like furniture.
• We are so ready to move!  It feels like we have been in limbo for ages so I will be really happy when everything gets done and we get moved!

Here are our lessons learned so far:

• Keep all of your important documents scanned and saved on your computer.  I have most all of the documents we need for the home loan stored this way and it is really useful when the lender calls and says "can you send me X document."  With the documents already saved I don't have to hunt through paper files for them.  Unfortunately, since we have been traveling, the particular paper needed today was lost in the shuffle before I had a chance to scan it.
• When you are bidding on a repo/short sale, bid a bit high.  I heard this from another guy who successfully bought a house here.  For the first 13 offers, we bid at a price we thought was reasonable for the property.  On this house, we bid $6000 over the asking price and we thought it was high but that made the bank accept our offer over all of the other offers and in the end, the bank ended up accepting the appraised price so it worked out well for us.
• Interest rates are freakishly low these days.  That makes this a good time to buy a house and/or a good time to refinance your current house loan to a much lower rate.
• Weekends and holidays can throw a wrench into your plans because everything is done on a count of "business days" not on 'all days' so ten business days can mean up to 15 regular days.
• Put aside money for closing costs.  Even if the seller will pay most or all of the closing costs, there are always extra things that come up and need paid for (the home inspection, appraisal, smoke alarms, and additional closing costs so far for us).

The Home Buying Saga Continues...

We had hoped to be moving into our new house tomorrow but like everything else associated with our quest to buy a house in Las Vegas, we hit another snag.  Everything was fine until yesterday when we were supposed to receive the appraisal then quickly sign the loan documents and possibly move in by tomorrow.  Instead the appraisal came in lower than what we had offered so we had to sign another paper asking the bank to lower the price of our offer (and thus the price of the house) to the amount of the appraisal.  I guess this is kind of common and banks are pretty likely to do this but it is just so stressful!  On the bright side, we will get the house for a lower price and our payments will be less!  So now we continue to wait and while we are at it, we are slowly moving everything out of our storage unit which will save us $75 (since our monthly storage rental term is up on Monday and they won't pro-rate the amount if we move in a week or so we just decided to store everything in our bedroom and sleep on the couch).  Now our condo looks like the storage unit but hopefully things will work out soon...emphasis on soon!

Furnishing Our New Home on the Cheap

Well at least I hope we will have a new home to furnish since we haven't officially closed on the house yet.  Right now our small condo looks kind of like our storage shed with furniture and boxes stacked everywhere but we have been getting stuff ready to move and buying furniture and other things to decorate the house with when we move in because we don't really have much in storage to fill up the rooms.  Here's some of our best deals:

• We needed to buy a kitchen table and chairs.  When we asked the cousin where a good place to buy this set would be, she mentioned that she had an "old, ugly" set in her garage that we could have if we wanted.  Of course we jumped on the offer and for $6.95, the cost of some fabric to reupholster the chairs, we saved probably $300+ over the cost of buying a new set.  In the picture above, you can see the old chair on the left and the newly covered chair on the right.  Throwing some new fabric over the old fabric on what are very sturdy chairs is a really cheap way to end up with nice furniture!
• We were at the Goodwill today (it's half off for seniors day!) and came out with a bunch of good stuff including a high table for our bedroom TV for $12 (pictures will follow when we get the house set up), and three bar stools for $3 each.  I am super happy with the bar stools because the kitchen has a big island and we wanted some stools for the island in case we want to add extra seating in the kitchen.  When we looked at Walmart, the cheapest price we could find for new bar stools was $15 each but they were small and not very sturdy.  Hubby spied a set of three upholstered stools at the Goodwill that were the perfect size and very sturdy but had kind of ugly (well used) upholstery on them so we grabbed the stools and then raced to the fabric store and bought up the last of the same fabric we used on the chairs so we could redo the bar stools as well (hmmm...maybe my side business should be upholstery!).  It was a nice day at the Goodwill!
• Last week we picked up some end tables for $2.50 each.  They were from Ikea and looked nearly new and were a savings of about $17.50 each over buying new.  A few days later we were at the indoor swap meet here in Las Vegas and a booth was selling close out scarves for $1.50 each so we bought two matching scarves and these will be used to cover the end tables.

I'm sure there is more stuff but it has been just a blur for the past week or so.  I will post pictures as soon as we get the house all decorated!

20 Things About Our New House

We had the inspection of our new house yesterday and I am cautiously optimistic that this sale might actually go through (really I won't believe it until we are actually handed the keys but one can hope!).  Here's some things about our house:

1. We are paying $125,000 for it.  This is a little more than double what we first expected to pay for a house here back when everyone was raving about the great $50,000 houses you could buy in Las Vegas at the height of the market downturn (they forgot to mention that trying to outbid cash investors on these super cheap houses is nearly impossible!). 
2. We put $1,500 down on the house (and hope to get some of that money applied to the principle since the seller is paying all of our closing costs).
3. We got the inspection done yesterday.  The cost was supposed to be $340 but the company said they would do it for $300 and then when the inspector arrived at the house and we told him he had done an inspection on a condo we were supposed to buy almost a year ago he said he would do the inspection for $250!  He also raved about what great condition the house is in so that's a good thing.
4. We have a great view of the Strip and our master balcony overlooks a nice park full of palm trees.
5. The house is bigger than we wanted to buy--it is three bedrooms and three baths as opposed to the two bedroom, two bath home we were looking to buy here.
6. On the plus side, we will have plenty of room for guests (and we seem to have had a bunch of these lately!).
7. It's a house and not a condo which I think is a very good thing.  Houses also tend to hold their value better than condos plus you don't end up with noisy upstairs neighbors like we currently have (we just turn the TV up to drown out their noise).
8. It isn't in a gated community.  I pretty much detest gated communities so was really happy that this home isn't in one.
9. It is part of an HOA.  Fortunately the monthly HOA fees are low but I really can't understand why every house in Vegas has to be in an HOA instead of having the city and county doing the job of maintaining the streets and landscaping.  Weird.
10. The yard is big with fruit trees and roses and flowers and the perfect space for a garden spot!
11. The back yard is also big enough for a clothesline which I am going to have hubby put up as soon as we move in.  It costs an arm and a leg here to dry clothes in the dryer so for the first time in my life I am going to try to dry all of our clothes outdoors just like my grandmother used to do.
12. The house is in excellent, move-in ready condition with all new paint and new flooring (this wasn't the case with many of the houses we looked at previously which would have taken over $5,000 worth of improvements before we would even want to move into them).  Needless to say, hubby is a very happy camper.
13. The neighborhood is excellent.  We drove around the neighborhood a bit and it really is a great location.
14. We have already started buying stuff for the house.  None of the bedrooms have ceiling fans in them (a necessity in this hot climate) so today we found nice enough ceiling fans at Walmart for $21.98 each so we bought three.
15. Because the house is bank owned they won't do anything to the house to help it pass the appraisal or inspection so when we noticed that all of the smoke detectors were missing, we bought five new ones, had our realtor let us into the house before the inspector got there yesterday, and quickly installed them (we didn't want to miss out on this great house because of $50 worth of smoke detectors... obviously if the sale falls through we are going back to uninstall them!).
16. The house has a bunch of things we aren't familiar with--gas appliances, a water softener system, a yard irrigation system, etc.  I am sure we will figure out how these things work eventually.
17. We still plan to keep our expenses as low as possible.  I believe our TV antennas will work so we won't need to get cable.  There won't be any internet so I will be getting online at the library most likely instead of paying for cable internet at the house.  We will do everything we can to keep our electric, gas, and water bills as low as possible, etc.  Eventually we will look into solar power for the house (but I understand this has a big up front cost to get started).
18. We have talked about "flipping" the house.  If prices on houses go up here like they are expected to, the hubby and I talked about selling the house as soon as it builds up $100,000 in equity.  We would then take this money and buy a smaller place.  Obviously this is a crap shoot because who knows which direction house values will go here.
19. We will furnish and decorate the house...slowly.  It would be nice to have $10,000 to go spend to furnish and decorate the house as soon as we move in but since that isn't going to happen we will just furnish and decorate it as the money comes in (which means we may be sitting on the floor for a while until we have the cash to buy a sofa).  We are also going to keep the cost of doing this to a minimum (as we learned when we had our massive garage sales when we sold our last house, the things we buy to decorate the house with--art work, trinkets, etc--are worth literally pennies on the dollar when you go to resell the items at a garage sale).
20. We will try not to shop too much at home decor places.  We were at Pier One Imports a few days ago and were lusting over all of the cuuuuttee things they had to make the house look so beautiful.  We will try to restrain ourselves (mostly by not shopping very much and hitting up the Goodwill for things we need for the house first).

So for now we are waiting for the process to move through all of the steps needed until the house closes but overall we are super happy with the house and will be super excited when we get the go-ahead to move in!

Today We Made an Offer...On House #10

I swear, I have NEVER had this much trouble buying a house in my entire life.  Actually I have only bought two houses in my entire life but both times I saw the house, said "this is the house I want" and in less than two months they were mine. 
Then we got to Las Vegas....the land of repos and short sales and foreclosures.  In theory buying houses here should be easy--there are empty houses on every block.  But we have made offers on ten...yes TEN properties and for one reason or another or another we were unsuccessful at purchasing them.  The first was marked as VA mortgageable and it wasn't.  The second we were outbid by a cash buyer.  On the third, we made an offer, the seller accepted it, then after we thought it was a go the seller countered our already approved offer with even worse terms.  On the fourth, a short sale, it was going to take two months for the bank to even look at our offer.  On the fifth, the bank had multiple offers so we were encouraged--multiple times--to keep upping our offer until we said no more.  Somewhere around house house seven we found out we couldn't submit an application for funding until the end of February so that gave us a breather. 
Then a couple days ago we started our house hunt again.  We made an offer on a short sale on the 29th of last month but the listing agent wouldn't even call our realtor back.  Then a couple days ago we made an offer on house nine and although we were supposed to hear back within three days if our offer was accepted the bank that owned the property sent an email saying they may get around to looking at the offers submitted for the property in about three weeks.  Aarrgghh.  So today we found THE HOUSE.  It's a house that is perfect.  Exactly what we want, minimal work to make it livable, a great location, etc.  So we wrote up our offer, I gave the offer a Catholic blessing (even though I am not Catholic) before it was sent off, and now we wait.  My fingers are literally crossed.

25 Ways to Reduce Your Housing Costs

After I met up with my friends yesterday, I took them to our place so they could see where we were living.  They were lamenting the apartment they rented--sight unseen--over CraigsList and the word "uninhabitable" came up a few times, so now they are looking for somewhere else to live ASAP (unfortunately they can't stay with us because they have a couple of dogs that must be in the house and hubby is pretty allergic to anything with fur).  I totally sounded like the un-Martha Stewart as I rattled off a bunch of things that we have learned so far about reducing our housing costs:

1. Buy or rent the SMALLEST place you can be comfortable in.  It will be cheaper to heat, air condition, furnish, etc.
2. Look at alternative places to live (in an RV, rent someone's basement or attic, etc).
3. If you have a place that is too big for you consider renting out the basement, attic, or extra rooms; use the money to help cover your rent/mortgage payment.
4. Check into any discounts/special rentals you may be entitled to (ie: senior housing, disabled housing, discounts for veterans, etc).
5. If you are flat broke, unemployed and/or disabled/have small kids, sign up for welfare and get on the Section 8 housing list (this will give you a place at greatly reduced rent; unfortunately in most cities this waiting list is incredibly LONG).
6. Reconsider whether you need cable TV.  We bought a digital antenna to catch over the air TV signals and are pretty please with it.
7. Reconsider whether you need a house phone.  Our cell phones work perfectly where we live so we don't even need a house phone.
8. On another phone note, if you are low income or disabled, look into low income phone service (some companies will offer steeply discounted cell and/or home phone service to people in these groups).
9. Reconsider whether you need internet at home.  We rarely use internet at home as I do most of my online stuff at the library each day plus I have internet on my phone so we have skipped internet and now use an "iffy" signal that is free at the condo complex if needed.
10. Use space heaters, blankets, and other "old fashioned" ways to keep warm instead of turning on the furnace and heating your entire house.
11. Ditto for air conditioning.  Keep the curtains pulled to keep the sun out, use window fans to move the air, and consider looking into single room air conditioners to keep only the room you are in cool instead of cooling the entire house.
12. Check into what kind of garbage plans are available where you live.  In rentals, garbage is often included but when you are buying a house you usually have to pay your own garbage bill.  We were able to reduce our garbage bill from two big cans weekly when everyone was living at home to one small can every other week when it was just the hubby and I.
13. Conserve water.  Last week, I Googled around for free low flow shower heads in our area and found that the water district was providing an entire water-use reduction kit for free just for asking (we will get free low flow shower heads, kitchen and bathroom sink aerators, and some brochures in a packet they will be mailing out today).
14. Conserve electricity.  Besides using fluorescent light bulbs and using space heaters only when necessary, we really try to keep our electricity use as low as possible by doing everything from turning off lights when not in use, to keeping things that use electricity (DVD player that we don't use much, etc) unplugged unless we are using them.
15. On another electricity note, our friends here in Las Vegas all seem to be on the electric company's "budget plan" which averages out their bills each month so they don't have super low bills in the winter and super high bills in the summer.
16. We also try to conserve natural gas in the same way--by being aware of when and how we are using it and reducing our usage as much as possible.
17. Get homeowners/renters insurance!  While this will be an added cost each month, it will be well worth it if anything happens to your home like a break-in or a fire.
18. We always keep a running list of things we need for our home.  When we first moved in it was long and included everything from ziploc bags to pillows.  Now it isn't so long.  This keeps us from buying tings we don't need and also keeps us from making multiple trips to the store because we forgot something.
19. My friends called to see where the nearest department store was so they cold buy housewares.  I told them the best way to get stuff for your house is to start with your list at the Dollar Store, then hit up thrift stores and garage sales, then go to Walmart, then try Ross or TJ Maxx, then make your final stop at the department store (and hopefully by then you will have bought everything on your list and have saved a considerable amount of money).
20. We learned to put our "house" money towards items we use every day (a good pan set, a good knife set) and spend as little as possible on things like home decor (when we sold all of our stuff before we traveled last year, home decor items had very little resale value!).
21. Look at bartering.  I have known a few people who have been able to "barter" their way to free housing.  This included taking care of an elderly person and getting free room and board and bartering work on a farm for the free use of a guest house for a family of four.
22. A few other people I know have received free housing (usually an apartment) by being managers of apartments or storage unit companies (with an on-site apartment for the caretaker/manager).
23. Minimize your stuff, not only will you make some money on the sale of your stuff, you will be able to clear out the storage unit you are paying extra for each month and/or clean out some spare rooms that could possibly be used for rentals.  At the least, you will have less stuff to maintain, insure, and keep track of.
24. If you are flat broke and low income/disabled/a veteran/a senior check into other discounts you are entitled to (ie: some counties have programs that allow seniors to pay less in property tax for their homes; many communities have programs that pay for a month or two of utilities for people who are low income, etc).
25. Don't try to impress others.  Whether it is buying the huge house so you can make a prosperous impression on your friends and relatives or buying only name-brand items for your home (when a cheaper item from the Dollar Store or Walmart would serve the purpose just as well); the desire to impress can lead to financial ruin so check your ego and go frugal--you'll save a lot of money and most people will applaud you for your creativity and have no idea that you got everything to decorate your living room at the Goodwill! 

The House Hunting Saga Continues...And It Isn't Good News

This morning we met with our realtor to make an offer on house #6.  The fact that we had needed to make offers on six houses should have been a sign that we probably weren't supposed to buy a house right now.  Anyway, because she couldn't get a hold of our lender and get a pre-approval letter which needed to be submitted with the offer, our realtor suggested that we talk to their in-house lender and see if he could give us a pre-approval letter.
After wading through our documents and crunching numbers and running a credit check he said he had good news and bad news.  The good news is that we are pre-qualified for "however much we want" according to him (around $250,000 based on our income) but the bad news is that we had a late payment on our mortgage in February and won't be able to get a mortgage loan until twelve months after that late payment.  That means we can't even make an offer on a house until MARCH!  Hubby is not happy. I'm not happy with the previous lender who should have known this.
We figured out that the mortgage payment on our previous house showed up as late because it was due on February 1st but we thought that since the house was sold then and would close on the 9th, we didn't need to send the payment as the loan would be paid in full just a week later.  Wrong thinking however, as this showed up on our credit report as a late payment. Ayayay
So hubby is irked as he is really tired of traveling and wants to buy a place and settle down immediately and I just feel sorry for our realtor who has shown us dozens of houses all for naught.  Surprisingly I am not angry or disappointed about having to wait.  Although I am not religious, I am pretty spiritual and figure that God puts us where we are supposed to be so if we aren't supposed to be in our own house until early summer then that's that.
Now our options are wide open for four months.  We may choose to rent a place in Las Vegas or hubby's cousin said we can continue to stay with her as long as we want (free of charge which is a good price but I would feel like we are imposing if we end up staying there for seven months!) or we can go back to Atlanta for a few months or we can visit the family in Connecticut (that idea got a big fat NO from hubby who is decidedly averse to snow and cold) or we can go back to the Philippines for a few months (technically a cheap place to live however with a huge extended family there it can get downright expensive)...or? I guess we will need to decide something soon.  Ideally hubby would win a big poker tournament and we would be able to pay cash for a place but I'm not holding my breath on that one...
I am also a bit relieved, however, that we are in a holding pattern.  With each house that we had made an offer on, the price kept rising as we were coming under the "bigger is better" and "gotta have it now" spell.  You may have experienced this as well...if a two bedroom, 1000 square foot home is good, then a three bedroom, 1400 square foot is better and it is "just five thousand dollars more."  Unfortunately I have done this with cars a number of times (your basic $15,000 new car is nice but for $20,000 I can get this much better car) so before we know it we have exceeded our budget and bought something much bigger and more expensive than we wanted when we started out.  In fact, we had started our house buying journey with a $50,000 offer on a condo and were up to $90,000 on the last house. Yikes. 
And even though we would qualify for a much bigger home loan, our goal when we started this process was to have a tiny house (so we wouldn't have to go back and buy all of the stuff we had sold at the beginning of the year to furnish it) and a tiny house payment (we are aiming for around $500 a month total, less than 20% of our income).  We have done the "house payment takes nearly 60% of our income" thing and that was stressful, stupid, and irresponsible...but I can see how people can easily fall into that trap if they keep seeing bigger and better houses.
So now...we wait.
Sorry about the long rant, I do feel much better now after writing all of this.
Also, Happy Halloween!!!!  Be safe out there with your kids.
Also (to prove that my luck isn't horrible horrible) just before I got to the library where I am writing this post there was a huge head on accident two cars ahead of me on the road.  This has happened to me a couple of times before and it is totally freaky.  I hope the people in the wreck are OK.  Life is very unpredictable.

Should You Buy a House?

I came across this article about a guy who said he will never, ever, buy a house again. It seems like a pretty extreme stance to take, kind of like having your heart broken and swearing off ever falling in love again!
The situation in the housing market has hit people pretty hard. For those of us with long enough memories, this sort of thing seems to happen every once in a while like the plunge in the housing market in the 1970's, the blip in the mid 1980's, and this most recent downturn in the market which, perhaps, impacted more people than in previous episodes because more people were lured into buying houses they couldn't afford with loan products that were downright (financially-speaking) stupid.
Even in light of this and even considering that we recently sold our house and willingly become homeless for at least a year or so while we travel, I would not rule out purchasing a house again. In fact, with house prices so low, now is an excellent time to buy a house if you are ready for one. How do you know if you are ready? Here's how:

• You can pay cash for a house (ideal).
• You can buy a house with a 15 year mortgage, a low interest rate, a good-sized down payment, and payments that will be no more than 25% of your net monthly income.
• You intend to stay in your house for at least ten years or longer.
• The house is located in a good area (good location, good schools, fairly stable housing base meaning not every other home on the block is a foreclosure).
• You have a houseful of kids you are providing for (living in an apartment with a houseful of kids is less than optimal. It's nice not to have to worry about them stomping on the floor, yelling like maniacs, or doing all of the other things that kids do that tend to annoy apartment neighbors).
• You have the means to take care of the upkeep on the home (this means the money to hire projects done or the skill/time/energy to do it yourself).
• You are buying a reasonably-sized home that will suit your current and future needs. I am hoping that the McMansions of the 1990s will become a thing of distant memory. No family consisting of mom, dad, and 2.3 kids needs a 5,000 square foot house! If you buy a house that will fit the kids now but still not be too big for you after the kids move out, you will be set. Also, smaller houses are cheaper to heat, air condition, clean, decorate, and take care of.
• You are buying a house because you really, really want one, not because you are tempted by low payments/low interest rates or someone else tells you it is a good idea.
• You have faith that the market will rebound. No one can tell you what the market will do but historically, the housing market always rebounds although it can take years for that to happen. I tend to have faith that the housing market--and housing prices--will eventually make a turnaround.
• You realize that renting can save you money but you also realize that renting leaves you nothing in the end. Historically the investment potential of buying a house has been a big impetus for people to buy houses and keep them in good condition so that when you retire or want to sell, you will be able to pull a little nest egg from the sale price which will fund your future. Note that that hasn't happened in the last few years since house prices took a nose dive so, again, the buy and hold strategy seems to work best here.
• You aren't buying a house to "flip", you aren't timing the market (no one's crystal ball is that clear!), and you aren't investing and expecting a quick payday. A house can be a good investment but like any investment, there are no guarantees!

Hubby and I have tossed around the idea of buying a new home when we decide where we want to settle down again. I have been a home owner since I was 19 and while it is more work and more expense than renting, I feel that it is, for the most part, well worth the effort and extra money. I also like the feeling of being rooted and the idea that I don't have to answer to anyone about what color I paint the walls or how loud I play my music. We will, of course, take all of the tings above into consideration when we do decide to buy.

Pretty Soon I Won't Own a House Anymore...

The good news--we got an offer on our house today for our full asking price!
The OK news--an offer doesn't mean a sale until I get the signed deed of sale papers in my hot little hands (ie: there are so many things that *could* go wrong and stop a sale that I won't be too excited until the sale is actually final).
The bad news--I have owned a house since I was 19 years old and I was looking at my key chain today and have exactly two keys on it, one to my PO Box and one to hubby's car, which technically means that I don't own ANYTHING (legally I still own a house but probably not for long and my house key is in the lock box for the realtor and my key ring is very, very empty!).

Surprisingly, I feel very light and not at all unhappy about not owning anything, although it just seems an odd circumstance to find myself in.
Some back story: I have been working full time since I was 16 years old. I bought my first car at 16 (with payments of course...nice intro into consumer debt...) and I bought a house (granted it was nearly 100 years old and something was ALWAYS breaking in it) when I was 19 years old because I wanted the type of security that I thought owning a house conveyed (I had previously lived in about a dozen places and I wanted to feel rooted).

Sooo...I have always equated owning a home with being responsible and rooted in the community and that somehow home ownership was a "better" choice than being an apartment dweller or worse, living in a trailer (fyi I grew up in a trailer so I'm not slandering those who do, it's just that in our area owning a house was considered much better than any other living option).
Owning a house is good for a number of reasons. When you have a house full of kids, you don't have to worry about being too noisy for the neighbors and you don't have to worry about the kids messing up the apartment to the tune of losing your security deposit. You can paint the walls, pound all the nails you want into the walls, and put in chartreuse carpet if you like. A house is a place for family to gather, there is nearly a guarantee that you will build equity in your house which can be looked at like a savings account or retirement fund (definitely not the case over the past couple of years), you have a "permanent" address, and you become part of a neighborhood.
But there is also a down side to owning a house which I never really looked at before (or maybe I didn't want to acknowledge before). Houses aren't cheap even if you have a stellar interest rate and low payments. If something goes wrong in the house YOU get to pay for it (we've replaced carpet, linoleum, hot water tanks, appliances, a furnace, siding, a roof, etc). If you own a house for years, it's nearly a guarantee that ALL of those things will break at one time or another...a house is a huge financial responsibility! You can't pick up and travel at the drop of a hat since you need to care for and maintain your home or find someone to do it for you. You can't quickly move away from mean neighbors, harsh climates, natural disaster areas, and other things that you can do easily if you are a renter. You, of course, NEED to work so you can pay your house payment, and a house can also be a psychological burden. I have known quite a few elderly relatives (mostly women because they tend to outlive the men) who held on to their houses way longer than they should have because they felt like it was their duty even if the house was falling down around them and even if they would have actually been much happier in a retirement community in Florida. But no, they struggled with maintaining the house as best they could, maintained the yard as best they could, paid bills to heat, air condition, and decorate houses than once housed large families but which they were now the sole occupant of. Which isn't to say that retirees shouldn't live out their life in their own home, just that is shouldn't be a socially or psychologically imposed requirement.
Now, my views on home ownership are not nearly as rigid as they used to be. I have learned that a "home" is more important than a house and that financially sacrificing yourself for a house which society deems as "necessary" doesn't make much sense at all. In fact, some of the blogs I follow are from people who are technically "homeless" but have truly amazing lives. Like these people, these people, and this lady. I have found more of a feeling of "home" in the run down apartments of illegal immigrants than in grand mansions. I have also seen people much less stressed and enjoying more time with their families and hobbies when they didn't have a huge mortgage hanging over their heads.
I am hoping our foray into joining the ranks of the "homeless" will provide even more lessons on actually living instead of just acquiring. Can I get an amen?

How to Renovate Your House For Very Little Money

I haven't posted in a few days because we have been doing a bit of renovating around the house. Since we didn't sell our house and now plan to stay here until the market improves (this could be a few years according to our realtor!), we decided to make some improvements. As usual, I want to do this with as much of a bare-bones budget as possible. This project is also on my goal list for the year, so while the motivation to do this project is there, we don't have a lot of money to actually do everything we want to do. Here's what we have done/are doing:

• I started by having a friend who is a flooring installer measure our entire house for carpet and linoleum in the kitchen (all of the bathrooms have new floors which were installed a few months ago). The verdict? The linoleum is a go and it will actually be installed tomorrow. The cost is $250 for the linoleum and glue and $200 for my friend to install it. Tile was way beyond our budget, and the carpet for the entire house will cost considerably more--about $2000 even with a discount on the installation--so this is a project that will wait until next year.
• I was bored with my home office so instead of buying stuff to make it more interesting, I decided to move in to one of the guest rooms (we had already sold the bed and furniture in there in anticipation of moving). The decor had an Indian theme so all I really needed to do was move my desk and office stuff and now it looks like a totally new office with exactly zero cost.
• The "office" I moved out of was actually the formal dining room which we never use, so it has been my office for the last few years. With this room now empty room, I went "shopping" around the house and decided to move a futon/sofa in there, add a variety of decor taken from other rooms (a book case, framed art, a big plant, etc) and now my friend calls it "the meditation room." Two rooms completed without having spent a dime.
• Our bedroom was the next room we tackled. I bought a new comforter with bed skirt and pillow shams for $25 at Ross. I was shocked to find this set because a similar set I wanted cost $175 at Macy's (I am super picky about how the comforter feels--no polyester fabric that "sparks" when you move it, no rough fabric, etc). We also decided to find a sofa for the sitting portion of our bedroom because we literally live in this room about 75% of the time, especially in the winter when it just makes financial sense to keep our bedroom heated and turn the furnace down to 55 for the rest of the house. There were lots of choices but all of them were at the $599 price range and up. At the last store we went to, we found the perfect love seat which was big enough but not too big. It was originally priced a $599, it was then clearance priced at half off ($298) and that day, it just so happened that the store was having a 50% off clearance sale which brought the price down to about $150. Score. All of the wall decor and drapes were found/traded with other rooms in the house.
• We wanted to focus on updating the kitchen the most because this is where people look when buying a house (we still hope to sell in the future). Since our kitchen looks "dated" (nothing has changed since the house was built 20 years ago), we decided to spend most of our money on this room. With the floor taken care of, we decided to get all new appliances. We ordered a new refrigerator, range, dishwasher, and range hood. We went bargain shopping on these purchases as well. Besides buying at the lower end (we need to fill the dishwasher space with a dishwasher yet we rarely ever use it so basically it is an expensive dish drainer), the hood was of the $150 variety which looks pretty much like the $500 model, the range/oven was a range I really liked at $399 instead of the higher priced models, and the refrigerator was a basic side by side that will work fine for us--it has the water/crushed ice, etc--that we like. We decided to go with white appliances instead of stainless which everyone told us to get for two reasons--my friend who sells appliances said you need to use special cleaner to keep the stainless looking good and he said I would have to get all of the appliances in the same brand because the color of the stainless varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Since stainless costs considerably more and because the appliances I chose were of different brands, that wouldn't have worked. Finally, I was able to buy the appliances when they were on sale at 20% off, and add my friend's employee discount (10% more off), and use my friend's credit card (another 5% off...of course I gave him the cash for the purchase). We were able to spend less than $1400 on all of the appliances not counting the money we will make by selling our old appliances on CraigsList AND the additional rebates we will get from our local electric utility which currently has rebates for the refrigerator and dishwasher.
• The only other things we need to do is power wash the concrete (basketball court, driveway, and walk ways) with a borrowed power washer from a friend. Power wash and repaint the deck (it seriously needs it!) which I will do so the only cost will be the paint, and do some landscaping (I would love to hire this done but will probably be out of money by then so I plan to do one section of the yard at a time myself...I guess it will be good exercise but I am not much of a gardener).

The bottom line, financially speaking, is that if you want to do your own renovations, try "shopping" from what you already have. Simply moving items from room to room will give your home a whole new look for no outlay of cash. If you really must buy stuff, be sure to shop sales (preferably of the 50% off clearance type). Obviously we could have saved money by buying used items either from the local thrift store or from CraigsList but I wanted new appliances that will last for quite a while and the love seat was a semi-extravagant purchase but I figured that it would hold enough value to be able to be sold on CraigsList for half of the purchase price while the more expensive sofas would have dropped from a $600 purchase price to a "used" price of about $100-$150 immediatly.

I'll end this post now because I have to get up early tomorrow morning and get everything out of the kitchen before the flooring guys get here which includes removing the dishwasher. Since I didn't want to pay $149 to have the "professionals" do this, I Googled "how to remove a dishwasher" and plan to do it myself...this should be interesting...

An Update...Or Rather Three Updates

Feeling much better and now ready to rock my financials. Here's the update:

• $1500 challenge. I made it! In addition to the $1000 I had collected in the previous update, I sold a gold bracelet that I never wore for $300 (not at a "Cash for Gold" place but to a local jeweler who pays much higher rates for salvage gold), and hubby won $200 at his weekly poker game so I did complete the challenge (and made my house payment) but I wouldn't recommend doing this with something as important as a house payment because it is TOO stressful. Fortunately I didn't have to tap into the emergency fund to make the payment! The best part is that hubby's credit card is half paid off and as soon as I get my bonus I will pay off the other half which was the whole catalyst for this challenge.
• The house sale. Not so much good new here. We have only had a few people look at the house since the end of the tax credit in April. The house may also be priced a bit high for the market so we may end up just keeping it until the market values raise around here. We aren't pressed to sell and we want to be able to make a reasonable profit so we will decide in June whether to pull it off the market for a while. Once we do decide to keep it, we will begin doing some renovations including a new kitchen floor and new appliances and counter tops in the kitchen., which should make it both nice for us to enjoy while we live here and add some value for the next time we put it on the market.
• Travel. I am heading to Chicago next week for a business trip (of course the hubby is tagging along as we always travel together). We always have a budget, sort of, in mind for our travel but it is usually pretty flexible. I read this post over at the Young Mogul blog and it gave me the idea to set a really tight budget for the trip and see if we can actually meet it. So next week's posts will revolve around how to squeeze every penny out of our travel dollars. I have already done a bit of research (Googling 'free things to do in Chicago') and found that there will be a Turkish Community Festival when we are there complete with free entertainment, a free day at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and free entrance to the National Museum of Surgical Science which should be interesting as well.

More House Info--Some Useful, Some...Not So Much

First, for the not so useful tidbits:

• We have had a half dozen showings of our house and hope to have an offer soon. The $8000 tax credit will expire at the end of the month and our realtor is practically positive it will sell by then. Yeah!
• However, if we don't get an offer by the beginning of next week, I'm going to go find a St Joseph and plant him in the front yard!
• Our house has never been so clean. When you have the possibility of people popping in on very short notice, you have to keep the place spotless. No dirty socks on the floor, no dirty dishes in the sink. It's kinda nice actually.

And now the useful stuff:

• I came across this article, 12 Hidden Costs of Home Ownership, which provided a good reminder of some of the costs associated with buying a new house, some of which I forgot and will no doubt be paying in the near future.
• eBay and Craigslist are my friend. The plan is that we will be selling our home then buying a new place, all of which should be completed within the next couple of months. That means we need to reduce all of our stuff that currently fits into a big house to an amount that will comfortably fit into a small condo. Needless to say, I have been eBaying and Craiglisting religiously over the past couple of weeks. A big garage sale (or two or three) is also in the works.
• We have taken a look at the PODS system and may consider this as an option to transition us through the move. I'm still a little fuzzy about how all of this works because the last time we moved, we kept our older house as a rental so we simply moved into our new house at our leisure then rented the old house after we were completely moved. This time around it looks like our house sale will close before out new condo sale will close so we will have a week or so during which we need to be out of our current house but not yet moved into our new place. In addition, I plan to do major work on the new place (painting, flooring, new appliances and cabinets, etc) which may take a few weeks to complete. A friend of mine had good luck with renting a "POD". She simply packed up all of her stuff into the POD which was delivered to her home, had the company move it to her new city, then store it for the few months until her new house was finished, then they drop the POD off at her new place and she unpacked it. Simple.

21 Reasons Why We are Selling Our House

This morning the sale ad for our house hit the internet and within an hour we had a realtor who wanted to bring his clients over to check out our home. That was fast!
Fortunately, hubby is warming up to the idea of selling our home and aside from a few (hourly) wisecracks about ending up homeless, he seems to see some of the possibilities that will result from the sale of our house. As I was trying to encourage myself to go through with actually selling this house that I love, I came up with a list of why it is a good idea to sell now:

1. The people who buy our house will get an $8000 tax credit which is one of the many reasons that so many people are out and about looking at homes this month (the credit ends April 30th).
2. If we find a place we like and sign a contract on it by the end of the month, we will get a tax credit as well.
3. No more yard work. We aren't yard and garden people and we have a big yard. Obviously this creates a problem. I am either resenting the extra money I spend to have someone else do the yard work or doing it myself and resenting the time spent doing yard work when I would rather be doing something else.
4. We will be debt free. With the proceeds from the sale of the house, we will be able to pay off our remaining debts and become totally debt free. Yipeee!
5. We will have money left after paying off our debts that will allow us to travel, put a big down payment on a smaller house, or both.
6. Our house it too big. We literally don't use half of the house (the formal living room, one of the bathrooms, the guest bedroom, the bonus room) and it just seems so wasteful to take up so much space on the planet and not actually use it.
7. We will have an excellent reason to downsize/minimize all of the junk we have collected over the course of 20+ years. The average person does not need so much stuff to live a happy life and I aim to prove it (with a couple of the biggest garage sales our neighborhood has ever seen!).
8. We will be able to afford higher quality decor/carpet/tile/etc. which we are planning to put in our new place because there will be less space to decorate (ie: carpeting 2500 square feet is a HUGE expense as opposed to carpeting less than 1000 square feet).
9. It will be much cheaper to heat/air condition a small home than a larger home.
10. It will take MUCH less time to clean a smaller place.
11. We will also have the option travel for a year or two before settling down again, something we have always wanted to do.
12. We are preparing for getting older. I have seen way too many people hold on to farms/huge houses/houses with expensive upkeep way into their old age and it seems like nothing but a burden to them. Big houses and big land is great when you have a big family to help you out but after the kids have grown up and moved away (which ours have), you are left with only one or two people doing the work that you used to have a whole family doing. It is tiring and expensive and it keeps you from doing stuff you want to do like traveling or just hanging out at the library and reading on a quiet weekend because there is always so much work to be done.
13. We want super manageable payments (which means that we may even be able to make double payments on the mortgage and pay it off super fast). Now our payments are pretty big so it really curtails the things we can do. Vacations need to be planned way in advance and making double payments are out of the question. With a tiny mortgage and the corresponding tiny payments, we will easily be able to travel for an extended period of time while still paying the mortgage or stay home and hammer away at the mortgage until it is gone. Of course, when we buy a new place we will get a 15 year fixed rate mortgage which is what we have on our current house.
14. We are looking for a newer house which should need much fewer repairs. Our current house is 20+ years old so if we stay here, we are eventually looking at a new roof, new siding, and some other repairs (such as replacing our 20+ year old hot water tank, 20+ year old appliances, etc.) Those are expensive things!
15. We are looking to the future and the possibility of living on one income. Currently it takes two incomes to support our lifestyle. Hubby has his retirement and soon will receive social security as well. I have a business which provides us a good amount of money, however we want to minimize our bills to the point where we can easily pay our monthly bills on just hubby's income. A couple year sabbatical from my business/community/social responsibilities/etc is looking really nice right now.
16. We want lifestyle options. Literally ALL of the people we know have no lifestyle options to speak of. They (we) are like hamsters in a wheel when it comes to our lifestyle because, due to being typical Americans, we work, we buy stuff, we work more, we buy bigger stuff, we run up debt, we have big mortgage payments, we can't leave our jobs for fear of going bankrupt... So you end up with one lifestyle option (working and spending). Bummer. We want the option of working because we want to not because we have to, being able to take off at a moment's notice to go to Europe for a month, being able to set aside large chunks of time to work on big projects (for me, writing a book), spending time with the grand kids, etc.
17. I occasionally worry about natural disasters. In our area, it is not IF an earthquake will happen, but WHEN. If we put all of our money and soul into our house (which BTW doesn't have earthquake insurance) and a major earthquake hits, we really will be homeless. If we have a tiny home and a lot of money in savings and a lot of options for vagabonding around the world, such an event will have much less impact on us.
18. I am kind of looking forward to it being like when the hubby and I first met. We had absolutely nothing (me because I was a college student at the time and hubby because he had just been divorced and his wife got literally everything) but we were very happy when we made a cool thrift shop find, when we had to slide the ironing board out of the way to get to the washing machine, and when we had exactly four plates, four forks, and four cups in our entire tiny apartment. Don't get me wrong, we are very happy now, and we certainly aren't planning to live as minimally as we did years ago, but I think that by downsizing significantly we may just end up even happier if that is possible.
19. I'm looking forward to a wonderful new adventure. We have had the same house for over a decade. Same neighbors for over a decade. Same scenery for over a decade. I am looking forward to a whole new life!
20. I have no idea what the economy will do but I suspect it may tank even more in the upcoming months then take a decade to recover. I would rather not have a significant amount of money invested in real estate at this time.
21. I don't want to be normal. Normal is keeping up with the Joneses, working like a maniac, and being in debt. So you can see why I don't want to be normal. Selling our home at a point when most people would think we are crazy since "everyone" needs a nice house is maybe the first step in being abnormal. Hooray for us!

So that's it...the reasons that keep me moving forward with selling our home and getting out of debt when most everyone else will think we have lost our minds.