ok, let's say I'm up 30K to 50K in equity.

when we bought the house we weren't thinking about school AT ALL. We have 3 years before she goes to pre school.

Would you sell now or wait another 2 years? Charlottes market is still pretty hot.

I have no advice, lol. I'm shopping for a first house now (just got the pre-approval a few weeks back).

my boss was telling me you love in a house for X amount of years and if you get a certain amount of equity you sell, wash rinse, repeat and that how you can build some wealth.

since we bought without thinking of schools I'm wondering if we should sell or stay put.

it probably won't be out last and when we do find that house we will get prolly get a 15 year mortgage

I think he bought a lemon

which can happen if you do it too often or only buy to flip.

If it was that bad, it sounds like the appraiser was finding shit years later that the inspector(s) should have before he closed.

Or maybe the neighborhood just went to shit.

and the neighborhood next to them went to shit.

mid 2000's.

He possibly got in on the game when times were good...and is still floating off those good times...but those days are gone...possibly for good.


*get ready....for your blessing"

to buy, good time to sell. I say that thinking that we are coming up on a housing dip soon. I could very well be wrong.

Chris

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

cause Charlotte is still red hot but it would be awesome to sell before a dip and then wait for prices to level before jumping on something.

we bought in Charlotte right after the crash. we didn't time it that way it just happened. The people who sold us their house lost money on it.

and that doesn't make sense to me.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I'd hate to spend X on a house that'll be worth (X - Y) after a few years. I'd rather see (X + Y), or at least X.

Even on the neighborhood to neighborhood level to a certain extent. If you are looking to buy then just look at the trend on the value of the house over the last 5-10 years to get an idea of whether the selling price is over inflated - not just when comparing to other recent sales, but when comparing against it's own value over time.

For example, if there's a big housing bubble and prices are over inflated, there are still going to be some houses available that are around the same price as their historical value over the last 5-10 years. That would be a good house to buy, because even if prices dip, you know THAT one will be relatively stable and will come back up.

We sold our old house and bought a new one at the same time last year. The prices of both sales were up a bit, so we basically won and lost at the same time. BUT our new house is definitely one we planning on being in long term, so the value vs the short term market isn't as big of a deal.

Most people just luck up. But I was looking what units in my building are going for and in my dream scenario I would sell right now. Rent for a year, market dips, and buy that bigger crib in the same nabe.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

life. BUT the logistics of selling and renting for a year then buying were also pretty tough. We have two kids, so renting a place big enough for the four of us to be comfortable (plus all our stuff which would have had to be in storage for a year) would have been really stressful too, plus that stress would have been stretched out over a year.

We put our house on the market, and while it was up for sale had our realtor show us houses that we may want to buy, knowing we couldn't make an offer until we had a purchase agreement on our own house. Once we got that down, there were a few houses that we liked, and two that were at the top of our list. We got outbid on one but had the offer accepted on the other (all within a week of the purchase agreement on our sale.)

Our realtor was great at the timing and the negotiations. The tough part is that on both the sale and the purchase you don't REALLY know what day you'll close until the mortgage company calls with the clear to close which is a day or two before closing. We closed on our sale one week, had occupancy in our old house for two more weeks. Had a clear to close on the new house (with immediate occupancy) within that time range, but at the last minute the mortgage company needed an extra couple days for the title company paperwork. Including the weekend, we had a 3 day "homeless" gap. Thankfully my parents live in the area, so we stayed with them for a few days, had all our stuff in storage pods so they were flexible on the timing, and got in the new house after the weekend.

>ok, let's say I'm up 30K to 50K in equity.
>
>when we bought the house we weren't thinking about school AT
>ALL. We have 3 years before she goes to pre school.
>
>Would you sell now or wait another 2 years? Charlottes market
>is still pretty hot.
>
>


*get ready....for your blessing"

So you might end up with like $10K in play money....and you gotta ask yourself if that is enough to put with whatever savings you already have to come up with the downpayment that's going to be required on the next house (that's likely going to cost more) in the school district you're eying...

So is the DMV move off the table now? That should factor in somewhere too...


*get ready....for your blessing"

just trying to cover all bases...

we would definitely sell if we moved there,even though there was a time when we thought we could rent it out.

and only you and your agents can answer that.

If you bought your current house without thinking about schools, start the research on schools, determining if the local district will work or not, what other areas have better districts, and what the housing cost is in those areas. Remember to check for charter schools.

Based on that, see if there are houses you like in the area with the best school districts, and if those houses would fit in your budget.

You have some good equity to work with. Ideally, you can sell your house and buy a new one and still be able to put a big chunk of that equity in the bank or into other investments to build some wealth. If your credit is strong, don't be afraid to buy a house while putting less down and having a larger mortgage if you are reinvesting the equity from the old house. The financing on the mortgage will be cheap as heck in terms of interest rates and you can beat that with your investments to build wealth.

It might not make sense if you're staying local. We bought in a good school district, and paid more than we would have in a neighborhood that we actually preferred. Four years later, our house is worth about 100,000 more than we pay for it, the catch is that those other neighborhoods now cost as much as ours did when we bought. We could cash out, but our monthly housing expense would be just as high as it is now, and the public school option would be completely off the table, and we may not be so keen on paying for private school for two kids.

I guess that's the answer I'm looking for but i wanted to hear other opinions and stories on this subject

if you like what you see you have flexibility to act on it. If you don't find anything you like, sounds like you're happy with your home so there's nothing lost there.

I couldn't continually move after x amount of years (as your boss mentioned). moving can be a pain in the ass and there's costs associated with that too (time and money). however, if you're looking to land in a good school district and you've already come up on some money from your initial investment it's as good a time as any to shop around.

It really depends on overall market conditions and your goal.we couldn't afford what we really wanted even with the huge return (110K) but that was a such a huge return we decided to strike while it was hot and there were good available options in our current range. Our current home is our stepping stone. Whatever comes next is where our kids will graduate high school.

Our new purchase was a massive upgrade but not quite what we wanted. It cost less than we sold our prior home for while valued at 100K less than it initially sold for ten years ago.

All this means we had a sizeable down so we're already sitting in 50K in equity with good potential for our value to increase over the next 3-5 years as the market recovers.

So it's a matter of how the numbers form your overall goals and how flexible you are overall.

granted the market also goes down but it's so lovely when it works out.