Update on our house situation

**Jamauk** · 07-19-2008, 12:08 PM

I have been sssooo out of the loop around here for about a week. I'm trying to catch up, but I may just have to jump in right where everyone is and miss some things.

But we've been busy around here!

If you have been following my house rants, you know that we have been having a frustrating time (to put it mildly) with trying to sell our house. Our first realtor was too timid and it just wasn't a good fit with us. We switched to her broker and he turned out to be a condescending, passive aggressive @$$hole. Jason got so fed up with him that on Thursday he called him and told him to come and get his sign out of our yard and take the lock box away.

So YES, our house is now officially OFF THE MARKET!!! I feel like I can breathe again! And ironically, on Friday the house was cleaner than its been in weeks. I cleaned because I wanted to. Not because I felt like I had to.

That night, we posted an ad on craigslist to rent our house. We've already had one showing and she's coming back on Tuesday for another walk through with her husband. We had two additional emails last night.

The rent doesn't quite cover our mortgage payment, but we can rent at this price for FOUR AND A HALF YEARS before we lose as much money as we would have if we had gotten a full price offer last week. We are also pretty comfortable that we can raise the rent about 3% each year.

We'll be moving in about six weeks and Sept 1 is when we finally get to start our debt snowball. We worked some very rough numbers yesterday and we should be debt free (except mortgages ~ land that we bought and two rental homes) with six month's living expenses in less than two years (DH's income is highly variable, so we did the snowball based on his base pay, no overtime. Once flying picks back up it'll make the snowball go even faster!).

At that point our plan is to sit down and reevaluate and decide our next move. It will probably be to start building our log home and we'll be able to pay cash as we go. That will take about 18 months or so. At which point we will have to refinance the property loan into a mortgage and we'll probably do a five year fixed and pay it off in about two years. Then we'll work on paying off the other two mortgages.

I am sssoo excited and I was amazed at the sense of relief when that idiot realtor was digging up his sign and pulling out of our driveway! YAY for me!!!!!

**lwlynch** · 07-19-2008, 12:14 PM

glad that you are finally finding some peace.. sounds like you got some good plans.. I am trying to get through these extra kids for the summer and hadnt had a moment to think. I am going to get busy on my debt and goals in a few weeks.. hope I get as motivated as you.. keep inspiriing me...

**frugalfriend** · 07-19-2008, 12:18 PM

Wow, sounds like you have a great plan in place. It was good to get an update from you! I hope you get a renter soon!

**Moor** · 07-19-2008, 12:24 PM

I am so glad that you have taken control back. Let's just hope that you get a renter (a good one) real soon.

missed you! glad to see ya back!

**Greebo** · 07-19-2008, 01:07 PM

Ok - I think you don't need me to say this - but you are doing credit and background checks on the renters, right?

Anyway - good move. Now you can take depreciation on the house, which means tax wise you may end up ahead at the end of the year, after all.

And oh yeah - missed having you around, glad you're back!!!

**Jamauk** · 07-19-2008, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by Greebo

Ok - I think you don't need me to say this - but you are doing credit and background checks on the renters, right?

Anyway - good move. Now you can take depreciation on the house, which means tax wise you may end up ahead at the end of the year, after all.

And oh yeah - missed having you around, glad you're back!!!

We figured in depreciation and we will be just shy of breaking even. Not too bad of a deal. I have another woman coming to look at the house this afternoon and yes ~ we'll be doing credit checks and criminal background checks.