Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I've said this before, but you've ignored it. After your last post I feel compelled to repeat myself. You are in your early fifties and have $240k saved for retirement, with no home equity, and a spouse who has a spending problem and enjoys the finer things. You apparently have little to nothing saved already for college, despite the fact that you have 4 kids, some of whom are getting close to college age.

Regardless of what you decide to do with the house, you need to abandon the notion that you are paying for college. You absolutely cannot afford it. I realize it will be hard to tell your kids, and you'll feel like you're letting them down. But there's enough time for them to apply for merit scholarships or take out loans, and you can help them with incidentals. But the idea that you are in financial position to pay for college tuition (never mind multiple tuitions!) is a fantasy. No fancy graph or chart will change that.

If we don't pay for private school ($4200) and we rent for $3000 (instead of $7000 mortgage) that gives us $8200 we didn't have, which is $98,000. Couldn't we save $60,000 for retirement and spend $40,000 on college? (May need a little less or a little more depending on choice of college). Planning on kid one working/doing a paid coop and kid 2 getting merit aid.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I've said this before, but you've ignored it. After your last post I feel compelled to repeat myself. You are in your early fifties and have $240k saved for retirement, with no home equity, and a spouse who has a spending problem and enjoys the finer things. You apparently have little to nothing saved already for college, despite the fact that you have 4 kids, some of whom are getting close to college age.

Regardless of what you decide to do with the house, you need to abandon the notion that you are paying for college. You absolutely cannot afford it. I realize it will be hard to tell your kids, and you'll feel like you're letting them down. But there's enough time for them to apply for merit scholarships or take out loans, and you can help them with incidentals. But the idea that you are in financial position to pay for college tuition (never mind multiple tuitions!) is a fantasy. No fancy graph or chart will change that.

Anonymous wrote:I am also stuck.
Our house was $430K when we bought it, built an expensive deck and did a lot more upgrades, now it is worth $320k, owe $316k, payments of $2100 means we would not be able to find a rental for less, so we are stuck

Got divorced and cannot afford to sell or to keep. But at least the kids have a roof over their heads and the school is OK, not great, but OK

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Home Price $1,250,000
Mortage $1,000,000
Equity $250,000
Cost to Sell $57,500
Sale Price $1,150,000
Losses $(100,000)

If you take the haircut now, you walk away with $150K in equity - and in your first year add $36,000 to that. Your 2nd year you do the same, and so on and so forth. Each year that grows by perhaps 6%.

I think this is off by $50K. If the mortgage is $1 mil and you sell for $1.15 mil and there's $57.5K of selling costs you'll have a shade under $100K rather than $150K, not sure if this is reflected in PP's graphs or not.

Actually the mortgage is $1,144,000. I think the cost to sell may be closer to 80,000. I'm hoping the sale price will be $1,250,000 or very close to it. So we probably will walk away with nothing and that is a big concern.

You said earlier your take-home is 16K - 7K for house - 4.2K for school = 4.8K for everything else (food, utilities, etc.) and it will go up to 9K per year next year when you put your kids in public school right? 4.8K for everything sounds very doable as long as you're not eating out a lot and buying a lot of stuff.

In the meantime, can you either sell some stuff or perhaps rent out one of the rooms/basement of your home to bring in a little extra money? Also, how old are you guys and what, if anything, has been saved for retirement (including pensions and employer match/contribution to 401(k).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Home Price $1,250,000
Mortage $1,000,000
Equity $250,000
Cost to Sell $57,500
Sale Price $1,150,000
Losses $(100,000)

If you take the haircut now, you walk away with $150K in equity - and in your first year add $36,000 to that. Your 2nd year you do the same, and so on and so forth. Each year that grows by perhaps 6%.

I think this is off by $50K. If the mortgage is $1 mil and you sell for $1.15 mil and there's $57.5K of selling costs you'll have a shade under $100K rather than $150K, not sure if this is reflected in PP's graphs or not.

Actually the mortgage is $1,144,000. I think the cost to sell may be closer to 80,000. I'm hoping the sale price will be $1,250,000 or very close to it. So we probably will walk away with nothing and that is a big concern.

Anonymous wrote:

Home Price $1,250,000
Mortage $1,000,000
Equity $250,000
Cost to Sell $57,500
Sale Price $1,150,000
Losses $(100,000)

If you take the haircut now, you walk away with $150K in equity - and in your first year add $36,000 to that. Your 2nd year you do the same, and so on and so forth. Each year that grows by perhaps 6%.

I think this is off by $50K. If the mortgage is $1 mil and you sell for $1.15 mil and there's $57.5K of selling costs you'll have a shade under $100K rather than $150K, not sure if this is reflected in PP's graphs or not.

Home Price $1,250,000
Mortage $1,000,000
Equity $250,000
Cost to Sell $57,500
Sale Price $1,150,000
Losses $(100,000)

If you take the haircut now, you walk away with $150K in equity - and in your first year add $36,000 to that. Your 2nd year you do the same, and so on and so forth. Each year that grows by perhaps 6%.

Anonymous wrote:OP here- I'm listening and I'm very impressed with the graphs and all the calculations. Thank you! You've convinced me. We're going to sell. I know it's the right thing to do. I'm curious about the occupation/education of the PP who did the graphs. What is your job and/or what's your educational background?
When I read the threads about how hard it is to buy a house in the DC area (especially a close in, upper brackets one) and how hard it is to save for a down payment, it does make me think twice. I guess the answer is we unfortunately bought when everyone assumed (from the evidence of the last 10 years) that real estate would continue to significantly appreciate and that with the booming economy we would get strong raises and significantly increase our salaries. A few months later it all crashed. It just doesn't make financial sense to put so much of our money into our mortgage when we could be getting a much better return on savings.