[quote=Ren][quote=paramount]My total mortgage is ~ $1600/month because I am in fact conservative, and very affordable as a % of my income. My taxes are barely over 1%.
I bought early 2003, were those bubble years? I never even knew what a RE bubble was until around 2005~2006. The $1600 = PITI.
I bought for 270k and put 30k down (of my own hard earned dollars), I have been making payments (never even one day late) for almost 8 years now. I have nothing to show for it, nothing. It’s all gone. I never expected to ‘make’ money on my house, but I never expected it to be a liability either.
I told my wife this past weekend if there is some sort of August surprise and we are not offered any relief that we should positively walk.
It was my intention to move to San Diego this summer, closer to my office. This still may happen, it’s just difficult to do particularly with kids.[/quote]
This whole time I thought you had a major problem, but it’s more regret than a current financial bind. After the tax benefit, you’re actually close to break-even, maybe slightly positive depending on the neighborhood, not counting maintenance. If you ditch it now, you’ll have nothing to show for the last 8 years. Instead, save your credit, rent the place out, and rent in SD. You’ll need to cover some maintenance out of pocket, but inflation will work in your favor and it will cash flow over time. In 22 years you’ll have a paid-for ATM spitting out roughly $1.5k every month (factoring in inflation guesstimate, tax, high maintenance costs of an older property, etc.).
Maybe you did buy at a high price – so let someone else pay it, at least until the next cycle peak. The very last thing I would do is walk away from this now.[/quote]
I have to second Ren’s suggestion. You can make lemonade out of this if you are willing to rent out your home and rent in the next neighborhood you want to live in down in San Diego.
You are not in a significantly different boat than if you had rented for the past 8 years. Sounds like you could be close to break-even as a rental. If not, you would get a nice tax break. For less than the price of a car payment out of pocket, you will own a property 22 years from now that was paid off by tenants.
If as a couple you make under 150K, with the depreciation you can claim on the rental you might even be better off if you rent it out and rented an equivalent place at the same rent.
