Wait. What?
Yes – we are preparing new to list our townhome and move.
First question – Where? Answer: Locally. We simply have different needs now as a family of four than JJ did when he was a single guy and purchased this home eleven years ago.
Second question – Wait… didn’t you just have heart surgery? Answer: Yes. So, we may be crazy. 😉
For the last few years we’ve talked about if it was time to sell the townhome.
It’s never been a good time.
First it was the housing bubble and falling prices that held us back.
Once the market turned around, we decided that it was not wise to add moving to the arrival of our first child.
Last spring we sat down with a realtor and seriously consider doing it, but again decided to hold off since E was expected and my energy levels where not up for it.
When we learned in January that heart surgery would be on the 2016 calendar, we sighed “not this year either”.
Then I had surgery and two things happened.
1. It went much better than expected and I am recovering at such a fast rate.
2. I was bored. Which resulted in looking at houses for sale near us. When I saw an interesting one in our price range, it suddenly became a call to the realtor and we were on our way.
We are currently packing up and decluttering. JJ’s parents are in town helping us do some repairs and fixes on the townhome.
We hope to have it listed in about 3 weeks and from what we’ve heard – it should sell quick.
The tricky part is going to be finding a new house. We are in need of (at minimum) 3 bed / 2 bath with a study. The study could just be a 4th bedroom. Basically we need a separate office space where JJ can work with the door closed. The last 3 years are showing us that having JJ work at home in the loft, with two little boys playing below, is not something we want to do long term.
I’m a little overwhelmed with the work that needs to be done, but we are pretty excited.
I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes.
Life & Love & Why 
Congrats on upsizing the home. It is very exciting. We did the same thing last summer. A few warnings about how your logic and emotions might battle during this. From one nerd in a FPU household to another.
“I got a 15 year mortgage like I’m supposed to, but I still don’t like my mortgage debt going up. I really liked how small the old mortgage was getting.”
“But I’m done with building my emergency fund. Oh yeah, a higher mortgage payment and a bigger (more expensive to maintain) house means 3-6 months of expenses is more money.” *SIGH*
There were probably more, but it has gotten better with time.
Besides JJ does need a separate room for his office. I got squeezed out of my office in our old house, too.
Don’t carry the heavy stuff.
Congrats again,
Shawn
Some great words of advice! Full disclosure… we aren’t doing this one the “Dave Ramsey” way:-/ I know… *gasp* 🙂
We are going 30 year and keeping our price range as low as we can so that our monthly mortgage will be the same (or super close) to what it is now. We did the same thing when we refinanced about 4 years ago. Since JJ’s income is so unpredictable, we are nervous to have a high(ish) monthly mortgage that a 15 year would be.
I know long run you pay more (higher interest rate, longer period of time etc) but we are going this route and will be paying extra toward the mortgage when we can. Like with our current one, we pay 1/2 every 2 weeks – so it’s a built in 13th payment each year.
Anyway though – Congrats on your new house as well! I hear ya on the “oh man, I liked the old mortgage being small”. I think we just hit a typing point where more of our monthly payment goes to principle instead of interest. I’m not going to like seeing that go the other way again.