Do I need to sell or keep the house in Tallahassee, experts please help ! (for sale)

[karmarepair]

I am new to this forum and searched quite a bit to see if my question is answered before and couldn't find anything similar. My husband lost his job 3 months ago and I got my 3 month notice last week. We bought a house in Tallahassee, FL in May 2007 for 265K on which we invested 20K on upgrades and 15 K closing costs totaling to 300K.

As I'm the main bread winner for our home and had a job in state we decided to buy the property, with the state Budget cuts I lost my job turning our lives upside down

My husband and I are technical programmers for IT and getting a job in Tallahassee in those fields is almost impossible. We have to relocate / travel to big cities to get jobs. To sell our property we called a couple of agents and requested for an estimate for selling price.They gave us a figure around 258K. Even if we are able to sell our house at that price we would still be losing as much as 60K (The realtors commission is 5%)....

The other option is to keep the house and we move out / travel out of Tallahassee and continue paying mortgage of $2000 per month and wait 2 or 3 years until the prices go up and then sell. A few details of the house - It's about 1860 sqft, is in a good schooling district and about 10 years old.

I understand no one can predict the future and tell us what we need to do...but I would greatly appreciate if there's some guidance and insight in this matter for us novices.....

[runswithscissors]

That's so hard with the factor that the value may go down in the future even more.

Suze Orman recommends renting the house out. My ex landlord is in the same position and rents at a loss even just to keep the property. But he plans on moving to it in the future. It sounds like you're not really planning like that. Plenty of times she's recommended just taking the loss if it won't ruin your life versus the stress of holding IF you can find a buyer.

You can see her on CNBC taking calls and giving her advise, I havent watched in awhile but she's even said "sometimes you have to walk away if your credit is already wrecked" which was a departure for her point of view last year.

If you keep it your equity will be tied up for a long time waiting for the prices to "come back" in my opinion.

I know this doesnt really "help" lol...sell or rent are both hard choices but if you arent selling at least maybe get a tenant to help with the mortgage if you have anyone to keep an eye out on the tenants.

[TriMT7]

I would say rent. Either way, you're going to be holding onto the property. You may attempt to sell and not have a buyer for a year or more anyway.

Place the listing with a broker for both rent AND sale. If you can get 2k for the house and cover your carrying costs for a year before you manage to sell, then go for it.

[Retiredcoach]

I don't know what the rental climate is like in Tallahassee right now, but I cannot help but think that your pool of reliable, trustworthy people (like yourself) looking to rent a $258000 - $300000 home is a diminishing entity. Even if you are lucky enough to find what appears to be a suitable tenant, are you mentally ready for the challenges of being an out of town landlord? Will you be fiscally prepared to pay a management and maintenance company? Are you prepared for the certain wear and tear that will afflict your home.... they depreciate rental properties for a reason.

[karmarepair]

Fortunately, the houses are moving pretty good in our area....The average time on the market is around 5 months (Real estate agents research).....Having that in my mind I was thinking of the sale...and coming to renting it...the maximum rent we would get is about $1,200 with having lawn and yard maintanence taken care by ourselves.

Renting option scares me because we have maintained the house immaculately and invested a lot on the fixtures and upgrades and worried that the tenants might not take care of them as we did and the house life approaching it's 10 year age needs more attention and care....and we might end up paying more on fixing later on....

[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by karmarepair

I am new to this forum and searched quite a bit to see if my question is answered before and couldn't find anything similar. My husband lost his job 3 months ago and I got my 3 month notice last week. We bought a house in Tallahassee, FL in May 2007 for 265K on which we invested 20K on upgrades and 15 K closing costs totaling to 300K.

As I'm the main bread winner for our home and had a job in state we decided to buy the property, with the state Budget cuts I lost my job turning our lives upside down

My husband and I are technical programmers for IT and getting a job in Tallahassee in those fields is almost impossible. We have to relocate / travel to big cities to get jobs. To sell our property we called a couple of agents and requested for an estimate for selling price.They gave us a figure around 258K. Even if we are able to sell our house at that price we would still be losing as much as 60K (The realtors commission is 5%)....

The other option is to keep the house and we move out / travel out of Tallahassee and continue paying mortgage of $2000 per month and wait 2 or 3 years until the prices go up and then sell. A few details of the house - It's about 1860 sqft, is in a good schooling district and about 10 years old.

I understand no one can predict the future and tell us what we need to do...but I would greatly appreciate if there's some guidance and insight in this matter for us novices.....

So much will depend upon your risk tolerance, your savings, and your abilities to find employment elsewhere. $24000 + annually is an awful lot of money to pay for a house that may sit vacant, or be rented at a discount in a region where at least 10% of the people are unemployed. There are recent projections that suggest that prices of Florida homes may decline even more significantly in the upcoming year. Your house may not ever attain that $300000 level, or it may take many years for a "rebound" in prices.... Can you afford that risk and a potential wait for nothing?

If you are not able to find a job near your current home, your best bet would be to unload it as quickly as possible. The carrying costs may surpass any equity that you have in it anyway. Price it to sell.... you may find your price may actually fall in the $240's or lower. You are in a most difficult position who can ill afford to sustain this significant debt while unemployed. Good luck.

[Mike1306]

Contact your lender and explain the situation.

Many have new programs to either write down some of the principal, let you put off payments for a few month etc.

See what they have to offer but you will need some kind of employment even if it is not in your current field.

[Wharris]

Have you considered renting out the house? Not to college kids but perhaps to graduate students or couples? For example, my gf and I are looking to possibly move to Tally for graduate school and want a nice quiet place away from the drunken idiots. If you pre-screen your occupants you could probably charge a rent equal to the cost of your mortgage payment and keep the house at least for a while.

Just an idea.

[phy]

Originally Posted by karmarepair

I am new to this forum and searched quite a bit to see if my question is answered before and couldn't find anything similar. My husband lost his job 3 months ago and I got my 3 month notice last week. We bought a house in Tallahassee, FL in May 2007 for 265K on which we invested 20K on upgrades and 15 K closing costs totaling to 300K.

As I'm the main bread winner for our home and had a job in state we decided to buy the property, with the state Budget cuts I lost my job turning our lives upside down

My husband and I are technical programmers for IT and getting a job in Tallahassee in those fields is almost impossible. We have to relocate / travel to big cities to get jobs. To sell our property we called a couple of agents and requested for an estimate for selling price.They gave us a figure around 258K. Even if we are able to sell our house at that price we would still be losing as much as 60K (The realtors commission is 5%)....

The other option is to keep the house and we move out / travel out of Tallahassee and continue paying mortgage of $2000 per month and wait 2 or 3 years until the prices go up and then sell. A few details of the house - It's about 1860 sqft, is in a good schooling district and about 10 years old.

I understand no one can predict the future and tell us what we need to do...but I would greatly appreciate if there's some guidance and insight in this matter for us novices.....

Hi,
My husband and I are in the same situation you are in. We own a house in Georgia and have it for sale for way below appraisal value and it has been on the market over a year. It is a beautiful home (My dream home), we had it custom built only a couple of years ago.
My husband got a job in Tallahassee because he knew the company in Georgia would be going out of business, which it did.
I personnally would rent it to get some return but like you say, it is hard to find someone to care for it like I did and being so far away, who could we get to do small repairs if anything went wrong.
We are renting an apartment in Tallahassee and I hate it but we have no choice until we sell.
I wish we could find a home, priced reasonable to rent here but the homes we've found to rent is just overpriced. We are not going to make someones mortgage payment in which there are no tax write offs. I would keep the house like it was mine and do the yard work and any small repairs.
I hope you have good luck finding a job and selling or renting your home.

[Strel]

Originally Posted by karmarepair

I am new to this forum and searched quite a bit to see if my question is answered before and couldn't find anything similar. My husband lost his job 3 months ago and I got my 3 month notice last week. We bought a house in Tallahassee, FL in May 2007 for 265K on which we invested 20K on upgrades and 15 K closing costs totaling to 300K.

As I'm the main bread winner for our home and had a job in state we decided to buy the property, with the state Budget cuts I lost my job turning our lives upside down

My husband and I are technical programmers for IT and getting a job in Tallahassee in those fields is almost impossible. We have to relocate / travel to big cities to get jobs. To sell our property we called a couple of agents and requested for an estimate for selling price.They gave us a figure around 258K. Even if we are able to sell our house at that price we would still be losing as much as 60K (The realtors commission is 5%)....

The other option is to keep the house and we move out / travel out of Tallahassee and continue paying mortgage of $2000 per month and wait 2 or 3 years until the prices go up and then sell. A few details of the house - It's about 1860 sqft, is in a good schooling district and about 10 years old.

I understand no one can predict the future and tell us what we need to do...but I would greatly appreciate if there's some guidance and insight in this matter for us novices.....

Rent it out and wait.