Appreciate the input everyone. I’m trying to make an objective decision, and this is really helping me out.
While the house was not intended as an investment, it was intended to be a relatively safe vessel for my down. Oooops.
On paper, I can afford the house, but that would mean I have to quit saving for retirement to make it happen.
I lost more $$ in the tech bubble (on paper, unlike this which was real money), so I’m not about to jump out of a window about it, but… this down was a significant chunk of my retirement.
If the house had not appreciated, I’d have been fine (it wasn’t intended as an investment in THAT sense).
In this case, it feels like it would be 8-10 years until the house appreciates enough to sell (this is a total swag based on jumping up to FHA max within 1-2 years, then <5% annually. I doubt I'm right but I'm afraid if I am). The appreciation charts from the mid-90's SD crash aren't making me warm and fuzzy.
In that time, I could be paying a lot less on a rental (and perhaps a new house in as soon as 2-3 years I'm told) and stuffing the overage into a mattress (as a hard metal filler, not paper) for my retirement.
$1400 a month, conservatively, is a lot of $$.
I have one credit card, and it's not universal default (they'll reassess in about a year when it expires), and if the economy hadn't tanked, it would be paid off right now.
The only reason I need a CC is to pay for things I order over the web.
