Upgrade house or pay off?

[Anonymous]

Definitely just stay then OP, if you like everythign about your location. Renovate your house to your liking.

[Anonymous]

Why do you want a bigger house if you don't have kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you want a bigger house if you don't have kids?

OP here. Again, no good answer. We started looking around and like some of the amenities of the other houses we saw and started hemming and hawing over whether or not it would be a smarter move to stay put and renovate or trade up. We talked to a neighbor who bought his house and then tore it down and built a new one on the same lot, but that seems like a big financial hit since we'd have nothing to sell (i.e. 450k mortgage, tear down house and we still have a 450k mortgage and then we build a new house and double or triple that?).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you want a bigger house if you don't have kids?

OP here. Again, no good answer. We started looking around and like some of the amenities of the other houses we saw and started hemming and hawing over whether or not it would be a smarter move to stay put and renovate or trade up. We talked to a neighbor who bought his house and then tore it down and built a new one on the same lot, but that seems like a big financial hit since we'd have nothing to sell (i.e. 450k mortgage, tear down house and we still have a 450k mortgage and then we build a new house and double or triple that?).

There's a huge difference between tearing down a tear down and building a new house and spending 100-200k to upgrade bathrooms and a kitchen. Which is it???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought you don't pay capital gains if you roll the money into a new home?

Outdated and wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no need to rollover $ into a new to avoid capital gains if lived in home 2 out of last 5 years

OP will pay capital gains taxes on some of her profit if she and her husband filing jointly have more than a $500,000 profit when they sell, even if they lived in the home for two of the past five years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought you don't pay capital gains if you roll the money into a new home?

Outdated and wrong.

Sadly this is true. I yearn for the good old days.