Should I sell my house now?
Spring and summer are some of the best times in New England. We have had so many cold days that we treasure any day that is even slightly warm. I like warm weather; the longer I live in New England the more I dislike our winters.
We have been debating with my husband if we should sell the house at this time and move to another place or not, because this is not the best time to sell. If we sell the house now, we will still get more than what we paid for seven years ago, although it has lost more than $100,000 in value since the highest reported price.
I have read all type of reports, that the housing market will continue to decline until 2010 to 2013. And prices will continue to go down. If that is the case we will be in the red in our home very soon, or in other words, we would have paid for our home more than the value at that time. And who knows how slowly the prices will recover and perhaps my home will not get to the price we paid in the next 10 years.
We are not ready to move; we like our home, but we work in our own businesses from home and we are not tied to any place, not even to the USA; we can live anywhere with an Internet connection. Just for discussion purposes let say we move to Austin, Texas or a similar city that has a much lower cost of living, we can save a lot of money. Even more radical idea, we can move to another country such as Costa Rica. But I would not like that, I want to move south but still be on the East coast.
I do wonder, Will I be regretting not to try to sell my house now in a couple of years. Since I do not want to live in my state (MA) forever the saying “you sell cheap, you buy cheap” does not apply. I can sell here a little better, rent in another place, wait until the prices have bottomed out and then buy. This way I would have not have lost money.
So what is the bottom line?
Most experts predict that housing prices will continue to fall, but remember that experts don’t always get it right. If they did, they will make so much money that they will retire in a tropical paradise and not dispensing advice for free on television. Indeed, it is impossible to predict the future, but it is reasonable to assume that prices will continue to fall for a while, but then, like any other cycle, they will start to rise as more people get fed up living in rented homes or the demand for homes outpaces the supply (right now the number of new homes being built is very small). So my advice is that if you do not have a strong reason to relocate, do not try to play the market. Just hang in there and try to ride out the downturn. It is also important to remember that you may not longer be able to use the house as an ATM.
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