We’d sell our house @ 2.65% if I were to get a great job offer in another city or to downsize after the kids are off to college. In the downsize instance, we’d likely use equity to pay cash or take out a very small mortgage.

We are in this situation. Would need to be able to steal a new construction place on at least a 1/4 acre with a garage and a screened in porch in yorktown district for $2m. Then, we’d likely pay cash.

retirement

Honestly all it will take is the right house in our preferred neighborhood at the right price (we are looking for an older maintained home, currently only new builds are available for $$$more). We've been in this house a long time (we had targeted summer 2020 to move, but didn't want to take a chance when Covid was so prevalent) and we're ready. We know our expenses will go up but we've planned for it and it's right for our family.

Anonymous wrote:my daughter being born

life isn't all about your mortgage rate. You can always make more money

No one has said anything like this on this thread. Are you always so dramatic?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This conundrum is basically the bane of my existence right now.

I HATE our neighborhood just because it's primarily elderly and we are a young family, neighbors don't engage with one another, not walkable but it's super safe, a fantastic public school district, our house is a large corner lot next to a playground so alas the 3% interest rate is keeping us here.

We both grew up teetering between LMC and MC and just can't get past the mental block of making a poor financial decision and letting go of a $2200 PITI for a 5bd/2ba home in a great school district.

Sorry but you are crazy. Just so you can have some neighbors that talk to you? I would pay more to have neighbors that don't talk to me.

+1

Once your kids are in school their friends likely won’t live next door. Great house, large lot and near a playground with great schools? I’d stay out forever until downsizing

Anonymous wrote:my daughter being born

life isn't all about your mortgage rate. You can always make more money

haha. Easier said than done for the vast majority of people.

The low mortgage rate is literally worth less and less each month. I got a low rate in 2016 and paid points and even now the monthly payment is moving away from interest.

I will move eventually I am retiring in 2028. Who cares about low rate by then

We gave up 2.75% on our starter house for 2x the square footage, 4x+ the lot size, excellent instead of bad schools, a cul-de-sac instead of a dangerous intersection, and a house, neighborhood, and town which checked almost all of our “nice to have” boxes so we jumped. Our mortgage is 4x what it was, and it has been amazing.

my daughter being born

life isn't all about your mortgage rate. You can always make more money

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was us in January. Sold our house @2.99% and bought a house @5%. MIL moved into our tiny house with two growing kids and we badly needed the space. Even if rates were in the 6s we would have still moved to a bigger but relatively cheaper place than our new place.

your story is irrelevant. Rates are no where near 5% these days.

NP, but OP’s question was asking what made it worth it for some people to give up that rate, and PP responded with exactly that. Hardly irrelevant

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would it take you to sell and buy something else?

Wanting to move.

This. You can't be controlled by the rates. May mean less house. But if I wanted to move I would move.

Family emergency (covers a lot of ground - health, financial, etc.)
Fabulous job elsewhere

Absent one of those things, we're staying put. Though to be fair, we are a family of three in a small house in a great neighborhood, so we'd be staying put for the time being anyway.

Where it may affect us is retirement - we'd long intended to leave DC suburbia and move to a more urban area (maybe DC, maybe elsewhere). But the deal we have on our current place, 2.625%, and the cost of a new place (we are NOT looking at low COL areas), may make that impossible, or at least inadvisable. So, we may end up staying here party time, and spending 6 months a year at our place elsewhere.

It would have to be an emergency situation to uproot with that sort of mortgage right now. Like mandatory job transfer, or divorce or bankruptcy.

Just to have neighbors that are younger or more social? No way.

It would need to be an unforeseen move to another city (not happening) or a situation where we would not be taking out another mortgage. We have dropped our anchor in Silver Spring!