We've been living out here at the cabin for over a year now. I know! Can you believe it?! And, as it is wont to, life has put another interesting choice in our path.
Our old house is still on the market. We've dropped the price four (or is it five?) times now. We've listed it for lease, too. No bites. There's another home in our neighborhood that's just a bit smaller that listed for $25K less, and it hasn't sold either. The rest of the homes for sale are priced similarly to ours. It's all quite depressing - pun intended.
This last price lowering is as low as we can go while leaving breathing room for negotiations. But what happens if we still can't move it or get tenants? At this point (and for the past three months, I might add) it's cost us more to live out here than it would to live there. At some point soon we'll have to make a change.
We've set the Calendar for August 1st. If we don't have an offer or tenants by then, we'll move back and do everything we can to continue to force ends to meet. The $300 - $400 we'll save each month will go toward our income taxes.
I feel conflicted about this. On the one hand (the one that still loathes scorpions and can't figure out the Caroline big girl bed dilemma) wants to pack a suitcase and go tonight. On the other, I would actually miss quite a bit about living out here - like the amazing land, scenery, trees, and solitude. (I almost got teary writing that sentence.)
It seems like staying out here would be the right (read: thrifty, sacrificial - maybe even penitent) thing to do. Live on less, in less, with less. But in terms of real numbers, it's not panning out that way.
I'm tempted to slap myself for trying to sell it in the first place, thereby losing our tenants. But as you well know, it sounded like the smart move at the time. And even though we knew that market was soft, we didn't know just how low we'd have to go to garner any attention - let alone an offer.
In the mid-term, I think moving back is the right decision, provided we can hang on by our fingernails until things improve a bit. In a few years we could (potentially) either sell it for a more reasonable price or be in a position to finish out our debt payments, thereby having the extra money to pay down our home equity loan more quickly.
If things don't go well, and bankruptcy was our only alternative, we would need to be in the house anyway. (Okay, writing that sentence made me nauseous.)
At this point, Todd and I have gone through our budget, double checking our numbers and trying to make sure we've factored everything in. It just feels so contrary - moving into the big house to save money - that we feel like there must be a catch. If you see one, please let me know.
I'm trying to keep in mind the pros of both living situations. That way, I'll be able to move forward regardless of what happens over the next few weeks. The nice thing is that both options DO have considerable pluses.
Are your economic adventures paying off? Do you have any suggestions for us? I feel like we're walking around with visible question marks floating over our heads.
