So your mortgage is less than $2K/month? That is very lucky. I have 3 kids and a dog and a cat, and I rent a townhouse. I love it! We pay $2200/month, and just signed a 2 year lease.
Interesting about the 5% drop. We had the same situation, and my husband and I still argue about our sales price. We listed our house last October for $780-830, but fully expected tot get $830. After 2 weeks on the market, last November, we had an offer at $780K. We countered, and the buyers walked. A month later, another offer at $780K. I told my husband, “we need to take this”. He said, “No, I’m not giving away my house.” We argued about this (a lot, actually, because I had been reading about the housing bubble and was afraid our offers would keep getting worse, and he was so in love with the house and thought the right buyer would fall in love with it and pay $800K).
We countered at 800K, even though the offer came with a cover letter that said the $780K was a firm and final offer. The buyer’s agent said they would not consider a counter, so we better remove that or they would walk. We buckled, and removed the counter, and sold for $780K. My husband thinks we should have held out for $800K. He thinks that someone would have paid that much. I don’t think so, since we were selling in a declining market. The other 3 homes that were our competition are either expired, cancelled, or reduced. We are the last sale in 8 months in that area.
But to keep marital peace, I told my husband that it is *possible* that we could have got the $800K. But I don’t believe it at all! It is more likely that our next offer would be $760 or $740, or that we would have reduced our price like the other sellers. I was feeling like that house, as beautiful as it was, was an albatross, because it was on its way to losing half its value. That’s what I think – most houses here will lose half their value, so I just wanted to dump and run before it got worse. I feel so much freedom now without that house.
