Paid off the last $2500 of the mortgage yesterday, car's paid for, only 2 $150 payments left on one bike. The feeling will be short lived I'm afraid... we put in an offer on another house (yes, the same damn day). If only the wife had her shit together financially... I'd be doing some serious racing.
Hard to brag about taking 24 years to pay off a house that I paid $62K for... at least I have a lot of particle board plaques and plastic trophies...
If any of you real estate gurus know about short sales and want to weigh in with any advice- this is the possible new place: https://www.zillow.com/myzillow/SavedHomes#233192763 We offered $187K and are thinking of allowing 2 bumps to 207 max.
If it was just me...no way at least for a couple years. The wife sold a 3600 sf house to join me in a 1200 sf place...with 1 bath.
I/we owe nothing but a house. Wouldn’t even owe that if we had not built a new house two years ago this April. Wife is much happier and that’s all that matters. New house is worth twice what we owe on it. Built in a very very good area and the price of the house has went up $80k since we moved in. The area is booming right now. Not being in a subdivision (no damn HOA BS) and on some property really ups it’s value. Currently looking into building a nice shop in the woods behind the house. I’ll owe some money then. Not going to expensive since I have retirement on my horizon in just a few short years. I have never really owed any money in my life. I just do not like payments of any kind. I do not carry credit card debit either. Luckily my wife is the same way.
I have 2 non-negotiable demands for the next house- NO HOA (I don't care if it's $5/month) and the garage/shop has to be bigger than the 24x32' I have now.
Every so often I think to myself that I could have my house paid off in 5 years If I stopped all this motorcycle crap, but then I'd just find another expensive hobby to blow all my money on.
Sit tight for a couple years and stack cash. Wait for the housing bubble and buy a pimp house for cash! Or sell what your in now (bank the cash) and rent something for a year or two until the crash. Then you'll have gotten a primo price for yours, and can steal something. If my home was paid off I'd sell it tomorrow and rent for a while. Prices are insane for houses and mortgage debt is near an all time high - so the bubble will pop again.
That all sounds great, but even with a small house I've collected WAY too much crap to store in a rental, and around here rent prices are way crazier than purchase prices. Plus...*wife* My plan is to get moved into new place, do some minor cosmetic updates to old place and sell it by early summer while market is still fairly hot.
Just told my wife today, we should sell all but one of our houses, rent the last one from ourselves until the shit hits the fan, and start over, buying more rentals.