My husband Mike and I have made a huge decision.
One that will alter the course of our lives and our kids’ lives.
We’ve decided to sell our house.
Here’s why we have decided to uproot our family and move with two small kids, two cats, and a dog.
The backstory
Mike and I bought our house through a short sale in August 2009, just a few weeks before we got married.
We bought at the bottom of the market and knew that this beautiful 6-bedroom house would be as much house as we could possibly need.
We also knew that it would be an awesome investment because the value was sure to increase once the market rebounded.
We envisioned raising our three or four kids here, within walking distance of two parks and the elementary and middle schools that they would someday attend.
Once we had moved in, I told Mike that I never wanted to move again. Since we bought this amazing house at such an awesome price, why would we ever need to?
It’s amazing how everything can change in one afternoon
On Mother’s Day — less than three weeks ago — we took a long walk with the kids. I pushed Madelyn in the stroller, and Jayden rode his bike.
Mike and I discussed ways of bringing in extra income so that we could meet our biggest goal for May — paying off our last non-mortgage debt, the Home Equity Line of Credit (aka HELOC).
We had brought the balance down to $9,400 from $21,000 in January, and our goal was to pay it off completely by June 1st.
We knew we had a challenge in front of us. Sure, we had paid off more than $10,000 in March, but we only get tax refunds once per year, and we didn’t have $2,000 worth of jewelry lying around anymore.
So we started discussing something that has been on the back of our minds for awhile — selling our house.
We knew that the value had appreciated tremendously since we bought it at the bottom of the market in 2009 and that we could buy a smaller home for much less than ours was worth.
Since our daughter Madelyn was born, Mike and I have gotten on the same page that two kids is a good fit for our family so we no longer feel that a house with six bedrooms is necessary.
But I was still hesitant.
I remembered the stress of packing and moving and the excitement we felt when we moved into our home when we got married.
Every time I had moved before, I knew it was only temporary. When we moved into our house, I felt comforted by the fact that this was a permanent move. Unless Mike’s job took us out of the area, we would never need to move again.
And I couldn’t imagine packing and moving now that we have two kids under the age of four.
But I also knew that we could likely pay off the HELOC and boost our emergency fund (our two biggest financial goals for 2015) in one fell swoop.
So I agreed to look at what houses were on the market, and if we found something we liked, then we could decide from there.
With the Internet in the palms of our hands, Mike and I started searching Zillow for 3+ bedroom houses in our neighborhood. Immediately, a beautiful 3-bedroom house with an office popped up. It was in our same neighborhood, only slightly closer to our neighborhood park.
And there was an open house right at that moment!
We loaded the kids and the bike in the car and raced over to check out the house.
Mike and I immediately fell in love with the house, and Jayden and Madelyn seemed to love it too, in spite of missing their naps that day due to all the excitement.
After a thorough tour of the house and imagining moving our lives to the new location, we left with a plan to put our house on the market so that we could make an official offer on the 3-bedroom house.
Here’s why we decided to sell our house
Even though we made the decision to sell our house so quickly, we certainly didn’t make it lightly.
Here are the four main reasons why we decided to sell our house:
We don’t need a 6-bedroom, 3,200 square foot home. In a world where so many people strive to upgrade and think that bigger is better, we are making the conscious decision to downsize our home. Since working on paying off our debt, we’ve been simplifying our lives and reducing the amount of stuff we own. A smaller house would fit better with our goals and ideals.
A smaller house would benefit us in several ways:
there’d be less house to clean (this is a big motivator for us!),
there’d be less house to heat and cool, and as a result, we’d reduce our utilities bills, and
a house with a lower value would mean that we’d save money on property taxes
We’d get a 15-year loan so that even if we don’t meet our ultimate financial goal of paying off our house in 6 years (which we will!), we would at least pay it off within 15 years.
We have enough equity in our house such that we could potentially buy a smaller house in our area, pay off our HELOC, and boost our emergency fund to $25,000 in one fell swoop. This would mean that we would instantly meet our biggest financial goals for the year, all while keeping our mortgage balance the same or possibly even reducing it in the process.
We’re not sure when the rollercoaster ride will end
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of cleaning and organizing, packing and selling. We’ve hosted two garage sales and have become more motivated to sell the things we own that we no longer need so that we’ll have less stuff to move.
And we’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster since Mother’s Day. The owner of that house in our neighborhood didn’t accept our offer so we have been busy looking for another place to call home.
We’ve gone from feelings of excitement to feelings of doubt, wondering if we’ve made the right decision, back to feelings of excitement — sometimes in the same day.
We’ve learned a lot about the real estate market in our area and have a renewed appreciation for how nice our home really is.
We were extremely fortunate to have benefitted from the downturn in the economy, and we knew our home would be a good investment. We bought low, and now we plan to sell at a premium, which is the goal with any investment.
We don’t know what the next few months will bring for us, and as a planner, I find comfort in knowing what lies ahead. To be completely honest, having this level of uncertainty about our future has definitely caused me a lot of stress and many sleepless nights.
But I keep telling myself that what’s meant to be will be. I strongly believe that things will work out the way they are supposed to.
If that means that we go through all these ups and downs and end up staying in our home, then we’ll know that this is where we are meant to be right now. We’ll still meet our financial goals; it just might take us a little bit longer.
If we find a new home and we move to a completely different neighborhood, we’ll look at it as an adventure and a fresh start. We’ll have less to clean, heat, and cool, and we’ll be able to make quick progress on our goals.
Either way, we know that God has a plan for us, and we are glad that we are not in a position where we have to downsize because we can no longer afford our home. We are simply trying to make a smart financial move that will get us a few steps closer to reaching true financial freedom.
What About You?
Participate in the conversation. What drastic financial decisions have you made? Have you bought and/or sold a home recently? If so, how did you deal with the uncertainty? Share in the comments below.
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Hi Monica, I just stumbled across your blog – I think we may be kindred spirits! We are on a similar journey. Almost two years ago we sold “The Big House” after being there for only 2 years. We moved from 2800 square feet down to 1369 square feet and couldn’t be happier! I am going to spend more time reviewing your blog posts and following your journey. I love your determination! Good luck, Amanda
Hi, Amanda! That’s so great! I’m glad you’re happier with your smaller house. We think we will be too. There will be less to clean and less to maintain. Thanks for your kind words! I checked out your website and can’t wait to learn more about your journey too! 🙂
We’ve always been very conservative with our finances. We had good training growing up re: finances and thus have never had any debt other than our current home mortgage… even after earning our degrees. So basically, we’ve been very blessed! When we built our current home, we had to fight with the builder a little (we were using our house plans)… he wanted big, grand, fancy this and that… we knew what we wanted and needed. We paid for the things that we couldn’t upgrade later (structural) and went inexpensive on things we could upgrade easily (countertops, etc). We’ve now been here for 11.5 years. We love this home, but honestly I’m a little envious of your purging! We neeeeed to do that, too! LOL Praying that your adventure to simplify your lives will be successful and bless your family!! <3
Thanks for your kind words, Stacee! That’s so awesome that you’ve never had any debt aside from your mortgage! It sounds like you were smart in sticking to your guns when building your house. We have found ourselves getting wooed at times by new construction or fancier homes than we need that are just a little bit out of our price range to make this a smart financial move. We remind ourselves of the purpose of this whole process and come back to our senses on what we’re really looking for.
Oh my gosh, that is a huge deal! I think that you’re approaching it with the attitude that will save you the most stress—even if you feel like everything is up in the air right now. I’m pulling for you and hoping for the best in this big process!
Thanks so much, Catherine! I really appreciate your support! I’m trying to be more of a “go with the flow” kinda girl and just trust the process. 🙂
Monica, you are following God’s lead, and will be blessed as such. SO excited to see the wonderful things He has planned for you. Sounds to me like you’re making a wise decision. 🙂
Thanks so much, Laurie! We’re excited to find out too!
This sounds like such a great move to me! It makes sense in so many ways. At least you only have a couple months of stress and then you’ll feel like you have a huge burden lifted off your shoulders once you are able to pay off your debt. We had to make a very difficult decision last year when we moved from Canada to Kuwait with our son to be teachers. It has given us the ability to meet so many goals: finish our BA’s (last summer just before coming), travel to 7 different countries, pay off our debt (as of last week!! Woot!), and build savings of about $20,000. All because of a very difficult (and stressful in many ways) move…but it was worth it! Now we are going back to Canada with new visions and dreams to work towards. Hopefully the sacrifice of moving from your home with bring so many great things in the future, maybe even more than you have dreamed of 🙂
Thank you, Amanda! That’s what sold me on committing to the idea. That it would just be a few months of stress, and then we’d be starting a new chapter of our lives — with less debt. It sounds like you made a smart decision with your move, and you’ve been blessed in many ways because of it.
First: holy cow that is a huge home! 😉 What’s interesting for our family is that with our kids (and their friends) getting older, we’re realizing how tight this space actually is for our growing kids and their needs. It was great when they were little, but as we’re creeping into middle school years with our oldest, I completely understand the need for more space. That said, I would love to downsize at the same time, and know that we will once the kids are out of school. It’s a constant tug of war. Good luck with selling your home! I know it’s a huge emotional ride, no matter what.
Thanks, Marlynn! We’ll enjoy the ride no matter how long it takes. 🙂
Wow! I can’t believe. You are right. This has been quite a roller coaster, but I love that you have let us enjoy the ride with you. Keep it up, youre doing great!
Thank you, Rachel! I’ll keep you posted on where the rollercoaster takes us. 🙂
Wow, Monica! I’m going to be following your journey closely since you know so much on this subject. We just went through the pre-approval process with a mortgage officer and really want to launch forward, but we keep seeing the “writing in the sky” to just hold on a little longer. It’s hard to wait though. Thank you for offering your honest feelings about all this. Many people will identify with that!
It’s an exciting process, isn’t it, Laura? Good for you for making sure you’re ready. I know you and Dontae will make the right decision for your family. You’re both very conscientious. I’m excited to follow you on your journey, as well!
It is great to see that you will potentially be able to make a profit on your first real estate purchase AND reach financial goals you have set. Unfortunately, we know others who have not been able to stay in their home due to a loss of job or other circumstances that life throws out sometimes.
Owning a home was once “the American Dream”. Now we are meeting more and more 20 + 30-somethings who decided they wanted to explore this country before they retire or are not healthy enough to travel. They homeschool, work camp, teach and learn American history by walking the paths and seeing the same sights the pioneers did.
Isn’t it grand that “home” is where we park it, or where we hang our hat, or where our family is … “home” is not defined by a physical structure. Life IS good !
Thanks, Candace! When we moved to this house, I dreamed of living here at least until our kids were all living on their own. But now I see that we can make our home in a new place, as well. 🙂
I really like that you are both focused on the prize and so have made the difficult decision to sell your home. I’m sure the new one will be just as nice and more importantly put you closer to being debt free.
Thanks so much, Ursula! We feel like we’re in a good position to find a smaller home that’s just as nice and meet a few of our financial goals in the process. It just makes sense to take this step.
Wow, what a huge decision to make! I also got married and bought our house a week after our wedding at the end of August 2009. We also talk about when we will sell our house – it too was a short sale and we know with the steep hill to the house and many stairs to the front door (almost 20) we know we won’t be growing too old in the house. It is a very emotional decision though as we made this our home and have not realized all the plans we made when we bought it. Good luck with all the selling and searching whether you end up moving or not this year, it sounds you are preparing to be able to seize the moment when it presents itself !
We’re on the same timeline, Pech! We’ve had many plans for this house for things we would do “someday,” but we feel that we can make new plans in a new house because we’ll be further along in our financial goals. Thank you for the well wishes! We’ll see what the next few months bring. 🙂
Good for you! The nugget I took was knowing how much house you really need. I think so many people just think more is better and that is not the case…
Thanks, Melinda! We certainly thought more was better when we bought the house, but we expected that we would have a larger family. Luckily, we bought it for a great price that fit in our budget. Now that we’re content with our family of four and we don’t use two of the rooms we have, we feel that a smaller house makes sense.
Your sensibility is refreshing here. I absolutely adore your family’s dedication to downsize in the name of what is necessary rather than needlessly and constantly upgrading. I can relate to the stress such a huge decision is putting on you right now (that kind of uncertainty would drive me mad), but I’m sure your decision will end up being for the best. I agree that it is so great that you are only trying to make smarter financial choices rather than backing yourselves into a situation where you needed to downsize because you couldn’t afford the home you are in currently. Loved this post and your honesty. Thanks for sharing, cheers!
Thanks, Danielle! I appreciate your kind words. We believe that everything will turn out for the best, and I’ll be sure to keep you all posted. 🙂
Good for you guys for even accepting it as an option, I know it’s so hard for some people to even consider downsizing, even though they don’t need all that house and it’s burying them. That’s partly why we still rent and people think we’re crazy but we’re cool with it. We don’t care much what the “Joneses” think 😉
Thanks so much, Sarah! I agree. We don’t want to try to keep up with the Joneses. Most of the time they can’t afford what they have anyway.