Move to AA Co or Renovate on Kent Island (Severn: sale, rental)

[MB0909]

My husband & I are trying to figure out if we should move tovthe Western Shore or put an addition on our Kent Island home. We bought before the crash & our home lost a lot of value. We a re not underwater but would only make a small profit if we sold. Because we don't have a lot of equity, we would have to do a renovation loan, which has s higher interest rate than a home equity loan.

Bottom line: our house is a little too small for our family of 3. We kuve in a 1700 sq. Foot rancher. No basements on the shore. We don't need or want a huge house-justva place to entertain guests away from our son's bedroom as we only have a great room, new countertops in kitchen & remodeled master bath.

It's hard to decide because:

Pros for leaving the shore for AA Co.

Closer to husband's job & proximity to better paying/more jobs for me
Slightly better schools for our son in the areas we are considering (Crofton, Severna Park, Arnold)
Closer to friends - they all live on Western Shore
No bridge incidents but stilk bad traffic

Pros for staying on the Shore:

Free childcare by my parents
Shore living-we love thev scenery & slower pace
More land (we have 1/3 acre-never get that affordably on the Western shore)
Better restaurants
Lower cost of living (Delmarva Power not BGE, gas is cheaper, etc.

Cons for AA Co.

Higher cost of living, especialky housing. We looked at houses in the $400-$479k range in the areas mentioned abive & all needed immediate bathroom/kitchen or other renovations.
Higher utility bills (hello BGE)
Childcare that is not free
Traffic
Faster pace and feeling like neighbors are on top
Bad architecture. We can't afford newer homes in the areas mentioned. Lots of outdated 60s & 70s homes in our "measely AA Co. Budget"

Cons of shore

Slightly lower performing school , not by much
Not much on market to buy bigger house. Have to stay in current school district
Commutes/ poor access to jobs for me
Farther from friends
Traffic issues with bridge were the worst in our almost 8 yrs there. Can't go east & can't go west in summer

Don't know what to do or how one pro trumps the other. The reno may cost as much as buying a house we don't even love in AA Co. The higher end of our housing budget is upoer $400s. We don't want to be house poor. Even at the top of our range, we didn't love any house. We feel now is the time to do something before interest rates skyrocket. We couldn't do anything earlier in the spring/summer because my company was going through a merger & I didn't know if I would have a job.

[DaveinMtAiry]

If it's a bad time to sell, and more importantly you love living on Kent Island, then I'd do the renovation. Life is about being happy. The free child care certainly makes up for the pay difference between the 2 places I would think.

[Gerania]

I think that the questions should be: Can you afford to move before you sell the house? Will you make enough on the sale of your home for a healthy down payment on a more expensive one? When your house sells, where are you going to stay until you find a place to buy? Rent? What's the rental situation like in your target location?

[MB0909]

No, we would need to sell before moving. We possibly can make a little profit, but might need to use it to fix/renovate things because of the quality of the homes in our price range. We have a VA Loan so u can put 0 percent down-not that we necessarily want that but may need to for safe area with good schools in AA Co.

[Cruzincat]

Your post gave me some thoughts about how you could achieve your goals of staying on KI, if that's what you would prefer to do. Maybe because of our own situation, I am thinking along that line. There are a lot of people that have long since passed the time that they wanted to downsize to a smaller home, but found they couldn't because they are either upside down or so close to being upside down that they can't get enough out of their home to pay for the realtor's fees. Maybe the other people might be coming up on retirement and have to do something, because they cannot keep up the payments and still be able to retire.

If you could find someone in that situation and you like their house and they like yours, maybe you could just get a lawyer to handle the transcations and purchase each other's home. The hard part is finding someone that would be willing to do that and has a house you'd like.

I am not going into details about our situation, but I could see something like that working for us at some future point.

[bande1102]

I dunno. I can't get past the part about 3 people needing a house larger than 1700 feet. My house is roughly 1800 feet and we are a family of 5.

Moving is expensive. In addition to the obvious realtor fees, you're looking at higher property taxes, and AA country also has the rain tax that, as far as I know, hasn't hit the Eastern shore. It's only about $100/year, but we all figure that's just the start.

Yeah, in that price range (I'm in AA county) you are looking at doing renovations anyway. And you can pretty much forget about a big yard. Interestingly enough, most of the guys that I work with (i.e. electricians) live on the Eastern Shore--they do much better work for a better price.

As far as jobs: I know very few of my neighbors who actually work in AA country. The vast majority are working in DC. Their commute is a nightmare.

Traffic: I travel back and forth on the Bay Bridge often as I have family in Easton. I will take the bridge traffic over the everyday mess I deal with over here any day of the week. The Bay Bridge traffic doesn't just affect the bridge. The major arteries on the west side, like 97 and 50 are impacted, too. In other words, I don't think you'll necessarily avoid any traffic by moving to the other side.

[MB0909]

I would normally agree that 1700 sq ft is ok. The issue is our particular layout. We onky have a great room and our son's bedroom is off of that. If we have company, we have to entertain in our kitchen, which isn't that big or comfortable. Or our bedroom. Even the distance from his room to the kitchen isn't far so noise travels. It is just a better retirement house vs. Family home with the layout. Only 1 floor & no basement. It woukd be easier with 2 floors.

[North Beach Person]

How much do you really entertain? Really.

It might be better to do an addition than go up a floor, you run into structural issues sometimes with that.

Just for reference we raised 4 kids in 1100 sq. ft.