Reply to Late 30s/early 40s - how many homes have you bought and sold?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH and I were college sweethearts and bought a condo when we got married in our early 20s. It was small and in a noisy area, so we sold that after 6 years (basically breaking even) for a single family home. We’ve been in that house for 2 years now and it’s turned out to be a lemon, and the neighborhood is pretty unfortunate with bad schools. No kids yet but obviously this decision was pretty short sighted, and I’m realizing that by the time we have a school aged kid we will more than likely want to move yet again, so we’ll probably only be in this house for 8 years and will likely lose money when we sell as we’ve had to spend so much on repairs. Are we especially stupid or have others had to buy and sell multiple times before landing on a place you can stay in for a long time?[/quote]

Other than the schools, what's wrong with the neighborhood? If daycare and elementary school are OK you could actually stay for awhile. But if there's something you don't like about the neighborhood, I would start looking to move now. Over time housing prices tend to go up, so it's better to just get the utility of the home you want to be in ASAP rather than continuing to put repairs in on this place you don't enjoy. And you can always refi if rates go down.[/quote]

+1. Bought our first and only house 10 years ago in EOTP DC. In hindsight, probably should have stretched our budget for better schools, but elementary is good and we're staying due to our sub 3% mortgage. Would probably move if we could keep our interest rate, but not looking to triple our mortgage when we like our actual house and immediate neighborhood. We'll either lottery into better middle and high schools, rent and rent for those years, or maybe stretch for private. But there's a big difference between, say, Manor Park zoned for Whittier with lots of lottery options, and Brentwood or somewhere else with violent crime issues.

But in this area it's very common to do exactly what you're proposing. Start with a condo, then a starter home, then a long term home once kids reach school age. With a lemon house and interest rates, you'll take a hit, but you have to weigh the cost of continuing to dump money into your house and whether the neighborhood is actually somewhere you'd feel unsafe with young kid(s).[/quote]

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