‘The Big Move’ is a MarketWatch column that looks at the ins and outs of real estate, from navigating the search for a new home to applying for a mortgage.
Do you have a question about buying or selling a home? Want to know where your next move should be? Email Jacob Passy at TheBigMove@marketwatch.com.
I have lived in my house for 40 years. I lived on 5.25 acres, and I went into town to subdivide the land into a subdivision and I passed it.
I like where I live, but the old house and the kids are gone. I am a 58 year old nurse. I pay $ 800 a month in real estate taxes plus my mortgage, which together is $ 2,500 a month.
I was offered a nice sum to sell my house for $ 500,000 over two years ago. I had another house that I liked and was going to buy it, so I wanted to sell it. But the sale fell on my house, so I had to move away from the house I wanted to buy.
Now there are no houses for sale and I haven’t found anything I like. So I had to rent it until I found something. Should I do that? Or just wait until more houses come on the market and sell when you find something? I probably won’t have much but homes won’t be expensive even to buy. Isn’t it still all out?
It would be nice to spend money, go on vacation and not have to work so hard. But I don’t even want to be stuck in a paying location like when I owned my house and be unhappy because I rent g in a place I don’t want to live in.
I love my home where I live! But property taxes are too expensive, and they are close to retirement and will have to be sold. I also have the money for my house and I won’t pay it before retirement, unless I move.
The costs of owning a home are growing rapidly across the country, so you’re not alone in feeling burdened.
A recent study by property data company Attom Data Solutions found that for an average homeowner, owning a home was only accessible in 41% of the country’s counties. In other words, in the other 59% of counties across the county, the average family would have to spend more than a third of their pay to take home for housing expenses, including housing payments. mortgages and property taxes.
Many sellers are in the same boat as you. They had to sell in a hurry – if they could find a house to buy. The inventory of homes for sale is at a minimum, and this creates something of a vicious cycle. Home sellers do not hesitate to put their properties on the market because there is almost no guarantee that they will have a place to live once the sale is completed.
The rent may seem like a one-way ticket to save, but that’s far from certain. I won’t tell you where you live, but there’s a decent chance it’s not so much more expensive to rent. In fact, rents in suburban and rural areas have risen sharply amid the pandemic as families have sought more space to live outside large cities. A separate report from Attom Data Solutions found that having a three-bedroom house (at the median price of the house) is cheaper than renting a three-bedroom house in nearly two-thirds of the country.
There are other negative aspects of leasing, to be sure. You have no control over your future housing costs, so while you may be able to pay rent for the first year there is nothing to prevent the landlord from pulling it out when you go to renovate. And when you own a home, you are building it towards a valuable financial asset.
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A recent study found that owning a home is still more affordable than renting in nearly two-thirds of the United States, despite rising house prices.
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With the lease, any money you spend will not be returned to you. Even if you have lower monthly costs, a lot is based on what you do with these savings. Ideally, you should invest or hide it for a rainy day, and not spend it.
You’re not powerless, though. Given how low mortgage rates are still – even if they have increased in recent weeks – I would suggest to see if a refinancing was right for you. But given how much you’ve been in your home and the fact that you’re still working to pay off a mortgage, I’m going to assume you refinanced a little while ago.
You don’t say what you did after you went to your local government to subdivide your land, but if it’s put there, I’ll think about selling it. Because you have a mortgage, however, this will not necessarily be a direct process.
When the land is subdivided, you need to get the written consent of the mortgage lender or server underlying the property, said Tom Trott, a branch manager with Embrace Home Loans in Maryland.
“This requirement is in most mortgages and in standard language in the act of trust of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Trott said. To sell a portion of the property, you will need the permission of your lender. But if it’s hard to get, you still have options.
“Assuming they can’t get a timely approval, then another option would be to make the sale and refinance the remaining balance at the same time,” Trott said.
