Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
FWIW We don't really want to move back into the fallback home. We have 2 small kids, plus my parents who live with us.
(1) Sell our primary home and the fallback home. Buy something that's around $600-700 with a down payment of $300-350k. The interest rate will be higher and we will pay lots of transaction costs but oh well
(2) Suck it up and try to make it work in our current situation. No more lawn mower or cleaning service. No more going out to eat. Reduce retirement savings just to the match.
(3) Sell fallback home only and refinance our main home. We can't do a recast because that is not allowed with a VA loan. We will pay a higher interest rate than 3.5%, obviously.
(4) Sell fallback home and put the $ in some sort of safe savings vehicle. Pull money from it as needed to help pay for main home so we don't lose our low interest rate.
I assume your fallback home is a part of your retirement plan? and that you might have a government pension as well (VA loan?) If yes, I would recommend cutting retirement savings to the match level right now and tighten your budget for the next year to see what numbers really look like.
In 6 months, I would look at your Arlington Home and see if there are any changes you can make to make it more marketable / increase rent. I am surprised that a property purchased in 2006 is just covering costs for rent (I know you probably purchased at the top of the bubble - we did when we purchased in 2006).
You might be in better shape than you think you are and need to think about having an emergency savings (in care you have a repair for either property or the rental is empty for a month or 2)
Also - I assume you have maxed your SS for the year / 401K. Make sure you communicate that to your new firm so that you do not get it taken out twice.