tvguy
Question anything the facts don't support.
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2003
We aren't mortgage free and don't plan to be (unless we do what the OP did, which isn't happening). I'm not selling my house to buy a double wide. I will sell to downsize but unless we move far from where we are, we can't pay cash even with our 300K in equity unless we want a small condo. Funny, depending on where you live what you consider a hefty mortgage payment. Ours is $3800 and our property taxes are 9K/yr and we've been here 15 years (refinanced to 3.75% a few years ago). Now, we have almost 6000 sq feet on 2/3 acre, but to "downsize" to even 2000 sq feet we would still have a mortgage payment. Our financial planner doesn't seem too concerned about us paying it off, but he knows we do plan to downsize and our retirement income will more than cover it. I'm retiring in just under 2 years when I'm 60 and DH plans to in about 4 years when he's 65. We have no other debt and currently live on about 1/2 of our take home pay which leaves plenty to tithe, vacation, add to our investments, and gift to others so having a mortgage doesn't really bother us. I know almost no one who is mortgage free under the age of 65 or 70 in this area (NoVA). Most who are either inherited money or have been in their homes 30 years and paid it off over that time. We probably will start paying ours down a bit, but we need to do some renovations to our 15 year old bathroom which will probably run at least 35K.
I was watching Fixer Upper last night, and a move in ready 3,000 square foot house in Waco was selling for $175,000. I say move in ready, because it had some "different" colored tile in the kitchen and interesting color choices for the walls that most of us would change, but structurally and functionally it was perfect. I know other cities a house like that would easily be well over $1 million.
My house payment was $1,100 for a $100,000 house at 12.25% 30 year (we jumped in 1983 when mortgage rates fell from 15%!) I actually paid $100 extra, so $1,200 a month. I refi-ed in 1987 to a 30 year at 9 % and a $900 payment. And I refied to a 15 year at 6.25% at $620 a month in 1991. House paid off in 2000. But the trick was, we never lowered what we paid each month from $1,200.
My property taxes started at $1,000 in 1983. Today they are $2,200 on a house valued by Zillow at $460,000. But in California property taxes are capped at 1% of what paid for the house, with the tax allowed to increase no more than 3% a year.