Lost 41% of my home's value... maybe a decent cigar will keep me sane.

[fortytwo]

So my wife and I need to buy a bigger, better house. We have a baby boy, and plans for another, and our little 75 year-old house just doesn't quite suit our needs any more. But, despite our healthy income it doesn't make sense for us to carry two mortgages.

Over the years we've put around $20-25k into the house. We will see none of it back. Not only that, but we can't even get what we owe on the house... not even close. If you take the original price we bought it for, tack on what we've put into it, and compare that to what we'd walk away with it comes to a 41% loss!!!

Forget a down payment on a new house - I have to bring twenty grand to the table just to get out of my current home!

[SMOKE20]

I am sorry to hear that.

[rizzle]

Sounds like you seriously overpaid when you bought. How long you been in the house?

[fortytwo]

Not really. We've owned the house for 5 years now. It actually appraised at about $15k over what we bought it for at one point - and that was before we did most of our improvements. Then, the market just started going down.

I think a big part of the problem is that our house is small, but in a somewhat pricey area. What you pay to get 2 bedrooms in our area, you can get 3-4 in other parts of the city. So, I think the more expensive small homes really took a beating in our area. If you look at comps, nothing is selling anywhere close to what it did 5 years ago in this area.

Originally Posted by rizzle

Sounds like you seriously overpaid when you bought. How long you been in the house?

[cummins2500hd]

I feel your pain as I have a hosue for sale in VA that I cannot seem to sell for what we have in it. We are living with ym inlaws in PA until I can sell. Now if that wont make you smoke cigars....save me LOL!!

[tmanqz]

I feel your pain. My house value is down 35%.
I want to move to a rural area and get out of the city, but they say it'll be ten years in MI. before the housing market gets back to where I can sell my house for what I paid for it. Heck I'd be happy to eat my equity and get rid of the house but that would still leave me 10 % in the hole. Theres people in my neibhorhood who cant give there houses away, the guy across the street packed up his sfuff and took off to Reno in the middle of the night , said the bank can have it and just abandoned the house.
Things are fricken crazy in MI.