Why I sold my house

Hiya! Long time no talk. 🤗

This past month seems to have flown by, unlike the rest of 2020. Between the final electoral college election results, vaccines for Covid being distributed and going home to see my family for Christmas, I feel like there is some positive energy pushing us forward into 2021!

This blog post though is not about 2021, or even about travel really. It’s about why I sold my house that I bought just last year. Yes, that’s right I sold a house I only owned for 15 months. Let me tell you why…

Travel back with me to May 2019.

I was starting my third season of cheering for the Tampa Bay buccaneers, almost fully recovered from my ACL surgery and felt like I had YEARS more of dancing in me along with my full time job. Younger Sarah had such high hopes lol. I had just moved into a townhouse in South Tampa and was so excited to be walking distance to everything. Then, not even three weeks into living in the new townhouse, my roommate tells me she took a job offer and would be leaving Tampa in two months. *Glass shatters* I worked hard the last two years to get in a financial position where I felt like I could afford the luxury prices of living in South Tampa, but I could only do that with a roommate. I quickly realized the price that my landlord was charging to rent in South Tampa was twice the mortgage they were actually paying. And again, I thought I’d be in Tampa for a couple more years…so I decided why not make the investment to buy?

I put an offer in on a house July 1, and we closed July 30. It was a crazy and quick process, signing lots of papers, not realizing what I signed up for.

While in the long run you save money by having a steady payment that doesn’t rise every year (and because you get part of that money back as you chip away at your loan), there’s a lot of extra fees you don’t think about until you get into the home. Landscaping, upkeep if the home is old like mine was, unexpected damages like when the water came through the ceiling 😳, and of course the dreaded taxes. Your utilities can also be double just because it’s more space.

So although I had a roommate, which made my monthly “rent” less than my half of the townhouse in South Tampa, that quickly changed as my first year of taxes hit my escrow account. Suddenly my mortgage payment rose by $500 a month, YIKES 😳.

So that was one reason to sell the house. But I didn’t have any plans to leave Tampa so why sell still?

At the beginning of quarantine, I came across the Dave Ramsey podcast. While I am fortunate not to have any debt, there’s still so much to be learned about managing your finances and making sure you are doing the most for your future. One of the biggest things on the baby steps he talks about is saving up in step 3B about 10-20% for a down payment on a home and to get a 15 year fixed mortgage. When I bought my house, I only did 5% down payment and did a 30 year mortgage to be able to “afford” more home. This made my monthly payment less, but obviously takes twice as long to pay off the home so you’re not making a big dent to the principal balance.

Essentially, selling my house came down to two things: Money and freedom.

A lot of times we are told to buy a house because that is the best investment for ourselves in the long run. But that only works if someone is rooted. I bought my house at age 28 because I felt like that’s what I should do. I didn’t have a boyfriend, I obviously wasn’t getting married anytime soon, but I figured maybe if I bought the house the rest will come?

It just seemed like the obvious next step that I should be doing at my age. I’m not sure when we started to label marriage and buying homes as successful, but I feel like this stigma needs to end. Too many people are trying to keep up with the Joneses by getting themselves house poor and then feeling stuck. I was really lucky that the market continued to boom in South Tampa, so I made a profit off selling my home, even with capital gains tax. But I know in most areas that’s normally not the case in the first year of homeownership.

So my advice is, really think about where you see yourself in the next 3 to 5 years before buying a home. Be realistic on how much you can afford for a monthly payment and give yourself wiggle room in your savings for unexpected costs.

If you are a wandering soul like me, don’t feel pressured to buy a home because that’s what everyone around you is doing. There are other ways to build wealth without having to commit to such a large financial & life decision. Plus I gotta say its nice to just call the landlord when there’s an issue.

And while we all don’t like to rent, I don’t see renting as a waste of my money if it means I have the financial freedom to go wherever I want when this pandemic ends.

Sincerely,

Sarah

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