((HUGS!!)) I’ve been looking for 1.5 years and might just Love It instead of List It. I am crossing my fingers that my target area will drop in price a bit. Best of luck to you!!

We’re planning to list our current home in February/March. The work we have left to do is manageable. Then we’ll just need to get everything moved out and clean from top to bottom. I’m hopeful that interest rates stop rising and housing prices in our area stop falling.

I’ve been looking to buy for about a year now. It’s a second home, so I’m not relying on a house sale to make my move. I’m currently renting in my desired neighborhood and I love it more each day. The well priced homes still sell within a day or two. Other homes that are probably overpriced are stagnating. Some ugly/poor quality flips have been on the market for 6 months. I came close to buying a couple weeks ago, but house was sold while I was dithering. I wasn’t heartbroken (that’s the question I always ask - how sad would I be if this sold) so I know I’ll find something else. I’m ok with renewing my lease if I haven’t found something. Good luck to you all on selling and buying!

Here in rural Missouri, large well-kept homes that went on the market in summer 2022 are now just sitting. Until those sellers realize that mortgage interest rates have gone up up up since then, they’re not going to sell without good-size price reductions. But they’re standing firm. *sigh*

Yay! So glad to hear that we have company in this. I’ve got my fingers crossed for you all. @Sofia I’m so jealous that you’re most of the way there on what you need to do. We’ve been chipping away at our to do list, but it still feels never-ending. Hoping to make a big dent this month.

Ugh, I hate this time of year. Keep checking for new listings and there are none. Wish I had $1 million from winning the lottery so David Bromstad (the love of my life❤️❤️❤️) could help me pick it out.

Friends in the greater San Jose area are facing problems. Lots of tech layoffs, but luckily he's almost to retirement. But the RE market has just frozen. Even the folks with great jobs aren't willing to buy because of the current instability of the job scene. They had no plans to sell and move back east for a couple of years, but he got cut last fall. Been with the (big big) company 20 plus years, too.

You don't know what a high interest rate is. For long time homeowners, 7% isn't bad at all. The early 80's, now that was unbelievable...over 18%. It did slow the market, but it didn't stop it. Big money loves a tax break. If you find a house you love and can afford it, go for it...rates change and you can always refinance (don't take cash out though). My concern would be taking a bridge loan now. Bridge loans are time sensitive...usually 6 months to a year. Pressure is on. The loan is going to have a higher interest rate...let's say 9% and if you don't sell your current residence in that time period you are in deep financial trouble; you could lose one or both of the properties to your lenders. It would take you years to repair the damage done to your personal wealth and credit rating. Take a deep breath and wait it out. Barring a world wide catastrophe (COVID), markets adjust.

And for any young 'uns reading my post, don't live in the moment. Your ultimate goal is to retire mortgage free...unless you win the lottery that Shady mentions....except it has to be a lot more than a $mil.

I haven't watched HGTV for a while. Going to take a peek at David Bromstad. Who did the series where the buyer was shown 3 properties, and then chose one?

We were fortunate that our first home, purchased in 1984, had a 12.5% assumable loan. Our banker had quoted me an 18% rate for a new loan around the same time.

Ultimate goal is to retire mortgage free??? You must have just one house.

"Ultimate goal is to retire mortgage free? You must have just one house."

ShadyWillowFarm, can you please explain that? I think I must circulate in rather different circumstances or just be misunderstanding you. The above quote sums up the goals of pretty much everyone I know. Although I will admit my Grandmother generously shares her 1.5 bath, 2 bedroom cabin with her four children, 7 grandchildren and their families.

@GW, I think I am being quoted by @ShadyWillowFarm, but I don't understand "you must have one house" either.

I can’t imagine who would make retiring mortgage free an “ultimate goal.” That’s just bad advice, especially with the recent low rates. You borrow low and invest for higher returns. If you’re paying off a low rate mortgage instead of taking advantage of the rocket ship of a stock market we’ve had, you really missed out. I’ll have a mortgage until I sell the place. There will be plenty left over once the bank is paid.

You don't get a "return" until you sell.

Well, ShadyWillow, I'm glad that has worked for you. I guess we go for security over risk. Seen enough folks where the sh** really hit the fan. And been close enough ourselves to be asking, "what's that smell?". Fortunately, when we had to sell our dropped-in-value house, we had put down our 20% so we weren't actually underwater, and were eligible for an unusual mortgage for our next house....otherwise, it would have been years and years of saving to get back in business.

You cannot put a price tag on the peace of mind that comes with owning a house free and clear. Mortage free = roof over your head with no risk of getting kicked out as long as you pay your taxes. So yes, I would love to retire mortgage-free. Absolutely. Absolutely positively.

Hopefully your residence is a small part of your overall portfolio. And with mortgage rates so low in recent years, with numerous other red hot investment opportunities, it’s silly to pay off a mortgage instead of investing.

Our residence is a small part of our portfolio but due to super unusual circumstances with one of our careers, it is not, in fact, silly to want to pay off our mortgage (confirmed by several financial planners). But we don’t treat it as an either/or circumstance; we invest and also seek to have a paid off home.

I remember the days of high mortgage rates well. Our first house was bought at a rate far above what we’re seeing now. Nonetheless, it’s painful to give up the great rate that we currently have for something so much higher. I’m hopeful for refinancing in the future, or just paying the thing off. I’m also hopeful that this will be our last move for a very, very long time.

So you are not paying off your mortgage instead of pursuing other investments, and retiring mortgage free is not your ultimate goal.

We paid off our mortgage more 10 years ago, as soon as we were able. At that time it was the wise thing to do, but obviously investment/interest rates were not the same then as they are today.

Nonetheless, the psychological benefit of living debt-free was (and remains) tremendously attractive to us. I don’t believe we will ever be rich, but we ARE content. I guess that is our goal.

Got it. We are not debt free, but we’ve always lived well within our means, and assets far outweigh liabilities.

I came on this forum for the first time in maybe ten years today to investigate some things for a friend who is getting ready to sell. I saw your question and have a cautionary tale to tell.

My mother-in-law died suddenly in 2005 and my father-in-law moved in with us that day. We loved living with him and he enjoyed our company and the company of our dogs. He was 89 years old and we did not feel comfortable with him going up and down the basement stairs for laundry and we definitely needed a second bathroom that we just could not fit into this house.

We decided to move once I got confirmation that I would have my new, better job, for the long term. We found a house in about a month of looking and decided that there was no way that we could prepare the old house for sale with us living in it. My husband had moved in after we married and just dropped his boxes of odds and ends in the basement, we both worked full time and caring for each other, three dogs, and Dad took all of our time. We needed to do a few repairs to the house, too, that could not be done with us living there. Given all that, we bought our new house Oct 31, 2005 and moved in over Thanksgiving. We had the old house’s hardwood floors redone, bathroom ceiling repaired, living room walls repaired, paint in any room that needed it, and had the house up for sale by owner (with help from a discount title company) March 1.

Long timers who may still be here may remember those years. It was not yet apparent that we were going into a terrible housing crash. I held open houses every Suday, putting out signs all around to direct people to the house. We were offering 3% to the buyer’s agency. We had one offer for $140,000 and we were asking $165,000. Unfortunately for us, we had paid for the down payment for the new house by putting a second mortgage on the old house. We had started out putting a second mortgage on the new house, but our mortgage person had the idea of putting it on the old house to get a better interest rate. Our recent kitchen remodel was the talk of the neighborhood, so we had reason to believe it would be easy to sell the house. But that mortgage kept us from being able to accept so low a price. We were saving to replace a bad furnace in the new house, not trusting it would be safe for another winter, and it is good that we did not use it to be able to accept the low offer. My sister-in-law turned on our furnace without telling us when she came to see her dad one day. Our CO alarm woke us up that night. We would have died if we did not have one. We were waiting for the furnace repair company to fit us in to inspect the old furnace and were planning to use an electric space heater for Dad until the furnace was inspected.

House prices in our area fell so low that the comps for our house were selling for about $95,000, what I bought it for in 1994. I had replaced the furnace, added air conditioning, added insulation to walls and attic, replaced all exterior doors and storm door, all the windows, covered the cement/asbestos siding with vinyl, replaced the front porch, driveway, walkways and patio, gutted and remodeled the kitchen, replaced the garage door and front fencing. We had to wait until the house prices went up again to be able to think about selling.

We finally sold the old house in late summer …of 2014. For a few years, we had a rent-to-buy person in the house, so at least the mortgages were paid. Then we put Dad’s caregiver into the house, which got him a great young woman who he trusted and enjoyed after he had several medical problems that caused him to be blind and bedbound. She and her husband were trustworthy and we had no fear that they would be damaging the house we had spent a lot of time and money to get into good shape. Empty houses were not even insurable anymore, so the alternative was renting to strangers. We got no rent after Dad passed away in 2010 and the caregiver lost her job, so we had to pay for both houses for a few years.

I don’t even remember what the house sold for. It went to a young couple, the husband grew up on the street behind our house. The wife loved the kitchen and they both loved the dog washing station at the back door for their dogs. We had hired a full service realtor this time.

If you do decide to buy before selling, be sure to not use the equity of the old house as a down payment on the new house by getting a second mortgage on the old house. Make sure you have the ability to come down in price if you need to, in order to unload the old house. Living well below your means is also a practice to embrace. During those years that we had two (actually, 3!) mortgages, we also had to replace the furnace, air conditioner, and roof on the new house, and I became disabled from work two years before the house sold. We made it, though!

Nancy, that story is soooo familiar. Also in Michigan. My grandfather was a huge proponent of owning your own home. Get a tiny starter, fix it up, you never lose....myself and all my cousins graduated college/started work between 2000 and 2006 or so...every.single.one.of.us.lost.money on our starter homes, except the two who are still in their starters. And no one was moving lightly, job changes, three kids crammed in a single bedroom, etc. My sister was underwater, renting out her first home for more than 10 years.

Maybe that bubble was a fluke, but although I still think home ownership is a great thing, I no longer think of it as a guarantee.

GW, after going through that, I wondered if home ownership made any sense at all. Then I heard a story on the CBC about how hard it has become to be a renter. Sky rocketing rents so that a second job is needed to pay for something smaller that costs $1000 more each month when the family was evicted after their rental house was sold. People live with a roommate sharing their bedrooms so that 4 people can afford to rent a two bedroom apartment together. Real estate is now an investment and the owners expect to get profits, driving rents higher and higher. Seems to me that something has got to give.

Thanks for sharing that, @Nancy in Mich! Our goal is definitely to sell our current house before buying the new, or at least have it under contract. We’ve bought our last two houses while still owning the last, and it can definitely be fraught with all kinds of problems.

I’m glad that you eventually sold your second house. You did an amazing job taking care of your father-in-law!

Yikes, sorry you had bad experiences. Borrowing money always has risk, and it’s so very hard to buy a house (or even a car) without borrowing money. We are so acclimated to all the whistles and bells - spare bedrooms, high end finishes, beautifully finished basements, etc.

We all shared bedrooms with siblings growing up, and played outside or in cold, dank basements with cinder block walls. And we were considered well off! So don’t feel bad about a “starter home,” it’s always better for the house to be a little too small for your friends and family, and have some financial peace of mind.

Being 'mortgage free' is simplistic. A house is not a liquid asset.i If you can finance your home for less than you can make on conservative investments, and you *could* pay off the mortgage if necessary, why not keep an old mortgage at low rates?

Exactly. Putting income into a retirement account rather than paying off a mortgage early is a no brainer in my situation.

Exciting (to me) update: we’re finally, after two years of looking, under contract on a house that we absolutely love. Built in 1965 and has had the same owners for the past 50 years. It needs some updating but is in immaculate condition. While I don’t know where our kids will settle in the future so I don’t know if it’s our forver home, we believe that if we stay in our current city, we’ll never leave this house.

We are so incredibly relieved, grateful, and excited.