Curve Ball

Well this week we got hit with a curve ball. So we made a plan and waited to see how the curve ball would pan out. See we live in a really, small house. With three growing boys and canned goods to store. Currently have 4 dogs (one is on loan well neighbor moves) 3 cats and one blind bunny.

 

Well this house popped into my inbox and normally I look at the address and delete, just because they are 20-30 minutes from us. Which means it would take hubby an hour to get to work. Not doing that. But this one was ten minutes from us right off the freeway. So really depending on traffic he could hit freeway and go straight to work. Do-able. The house is bigger and lots of land. hum? So after some back and fourth we contacted our agent and some talking with her because you can't finance the house. We went and looked just to rule it out.

 

Oh how I liked that house. The land all beat up was dreamy. BUT it would take money to move in as the floors are really slanted. We were missing one very important room that we need in a house. And you can't raise teens in bedrooms that small. And you can't buy a house just for the land.

 

 

 

So we moved on to Plan B. Wait for our neighbors house to go up for auction and see if we had enough cash to buy that out. Use it as a rental to pay off the loans we would have to get. We would take the back half of the land for the garden. But we know the septic needs replacing. The house is small and really do we want to be land lords? Maybe one day but not this year. So last night after much talking we have moved on to Plan C.

 

 

 

Plan C. is to pay down the mortgage as much as possible. At the end of the week any cash in the bank will be pulled and put into a pile. Once we have 1-200 dollars it will be sent off to money lady. We will build up that account so we have cash on hand. So that when the right house comes along we have cash and we can sell the house and use the proceeds. Pay cash for the house and be Mortgage Debt free. Now lets say in 2-3 years nothing comes along, we might just stay here and expand out the house. But that is Plan D.

 

Also part of Plan C. We found out about how much our house would sell for today. Relief. We have been bobbing between underwater and a bit over water. Right on that borderline. But house prices have risen and if we sold today we would walk with 5-6k. Boy was that math nice to do. We wouldn't have to come up with money to sell. So "if" we can stay on track with my paying down the Mortgage idea. At the end of the year we will have 20% in the house. We can then talk to a Mortgage person and talk about our final re-fi, I only want to re-fi if we can drop mortgage insurance. Of course with all the ever changing rules we may not be able to do this. But it's why we will talk before doing any paperwork. It also gives us time to work on credit score and more medical to drop off.

 

But a re-fi would put more money into our budget which would allow us to pay down the house faster and save more.

 

So we dodged this curve ball. We are not moving and trying to sell and come up with cash before the end of the year. RELIEF. This did kick our butt and we got our thoughts organized.