And the housing debate begins ..

[ironmaiden]

A mall developer wants to build one in our across the street neighbors' backyards. There's a 25 acre parcel that used to be an office for one company - with most of it green space. My fear is that once they get the property zoned for their mall, they will buy up all the houses that abut the property and thus WE will be staring at their mall and their traffic will use our street as well. And yes, we are fighting them and they have infiltrated our town with their marketing campaign of pretty pictures and inflated tax dollars.

So DH and I need to decide about where we want to live if we lose.

We went looking at houses last weekend to get an idea of where we stand.

The only house DH and I liked was much more than our current house is worth.

DH also pointed out that when we picked this house, it was the only house that wasn't a Cape or a box with no character at it's price point. That everything equivalent in price is either a small Cape or a massive fixer-upper. That this house was pretty much unique as it was hand-built by the people who then lived in it for 50 years in the 1920's.

He said that since he is making as much as we both did combined when we bought this house 12 years ago,that we could afford a more expensive house.
We started with a 30 year mortgage at 8 1/4%.

But this isn't how I'm thinking. I think we've been paying on a mortgage for 12 years. We refinanced a few years ago for 4.5% and 10 years.

So I look at it as we've been paying for 12 years and have about 7 years left. Once this house is paid for, we'd have all that mortgage money for trips, retirement money, college money. We could redecide what we want to do for work, if we chose. It's the financial freedom from Your Money or Your Life achieved. We'd be golden. We'd have paid for a total of 19 years.

But looking at it his way, we'd be starting a 30 year loan for a higher interest rate and paying into housing for a grand total of 42 years. DH is 46 now, do we really want a 30 year loan???
He looks at it as I'll be going back to work part-time in a few years, so it wont be a grand total of 30 years for the next house. Whereas I think that part-time money would also go to those other things in life.

Our current house is big enough for the 4 of us. And if it wasn't for the stupid potential of a mall, we'd be here at least until retirement.

By the way, money has never been one of our life problems. I didn't grew up with much, but we weren't in "I want" mode either as I rarely asked for anything cause I knew my parents didn't have it. We have had many other problems in life making the mall look like an annoyance in comparison, so remember, everyone in life has their trials to deal with.

[ewokgirl]

I'm so sorry you have to even consider all this! I'm with you, though. An extra 30 years on another house just doesn't seem worth it. And you can't always bank on the premise that everyone will be healthy and able to work to cut down on the time in which the mortgage is paid.

I just hope the mall doesn't prevail. But, we know that when it comes to more shopping potential, some people can't see straight. It's really sad that shopping seems to have become the national pastime.

[canadian gardener]

Do you love the house? Sounds like you do, and that combined with the fact that you don't have long till payoff, makes it a good thing to stay.

Will your property value increase or decrease due to the mall? Not everyone sees things the same way, and developers may want to pay a higher price for your property. If so, then selling and getting the dollars out may translate to the best action because then you can turn around and buy something more private and further out for about what you get for the place.

Trade houses, not mortgages if you get me. Talk to a mtg specialist like a mtg broker.