We are wanting to put our house up for sale in early May. We refinanced our house back in Oct 07. Well life changes. We are now going to outgrow this house and need more space. Fortunately, we came into some money last year and paid off almost all of our credit cards (paying off christmas now though). We are legible for a VA loan. Another option we are looking into is FHA loans. We could come up with the 3% down. We have some minor things we need to get our house ready (finish the cosmetics in bathroom, new over the stove microwave), replace a portion of fencing, touch up paint, landscaping to make attractive. I am worried because the neighbor has had his up since late August and he hasn't sold yet. His only thing he has more than us is a half bath and central air. We have an AC that is downstairs and cools the entire house. He has done updates to his house - new windows and central air and cosmetic inside.
Our house has been pretty much totally renovated (new windows, new siding, new insulation under siding, new main sewer line in house in basement, newer carpet upstairs that is neutral, neutral colors throughout, new bathroom, new H20 heater, new roof on the addition, etc). We have an enormous custom oak kitchen with enormous island that the appraiser said in Oct 07 would sell our house and makes it very attractive to a buyer. He said the kitchen was the biggest thing that raised our appraisal.
I am kind of worried because he hasn't sold his yet. He bought a house without a contigency to sell his first. We are not willing to do that. I can say that I don't understand why his has not sold yet (maybe small kitchen, bedrooms, and a huge stump that takes up the front yard - these are things that would turn me off). But I do think the houses are equal and he should be in that price range. When looking at comparable houses, none of them have updated mechanics or kitchen.
So where do we start? I want to go back to our mortgage guy, have him look at our finances and scores (FAKOS were in 700s with no baddies). From running budget numbers, Our monthly income is $8500. Our credit cards/student loans/cars are $1600. Our mortgage now is $860 (includes taxes, pmi, etc). The area we want to move into has very high property taxes (NYS what else can you say) at around 6k a year for $160k house. We are going to pay the credit card stuff down. Working on that now. The bulk of that is for student loans and car payments in our monthly debt.
I want to go to talk with the guy that did our first mortgage because he did a fantastic job. He got us into a house. He got us into a great loan. We refinanced to pay off the improvements and some credit card debt with a lower interest rate. The improvements that we made to the house more than caught up with how much we put into it. My husband says it is too soon.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
P.S. we are in a much better financial situation and scores than we were with buying the house to begin with.
